


Run Mad as Often as You Choose

by Souless_Robot



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Child Abuse, Childhood Friends, Childhood Trauma, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hive Mind, Monkey D. Luffy Loves His Friends, One Piece Sense 8 Au, Sense 8 - Freeform, Sense Sharing, The Strawhats are a cluster, The Strawhats had terrible childhoods, alternate universe - sense 8
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:07:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 25,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24456442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Souless_Robot/pseuds/Souless_Robot
Summary: There were whispers across the world of strange individuals. Murmurs in dark alleys of monsters that shared one mind, that they could talk from oceans apart, and they had strange abilities. It wasn't a Devil Fruit they said, but it was still the power of devils. Legends circled the globe about these 'clusters' and how every time these monsters appeared as children they were whisked away by the World Government for the protection of everyone.  After all, they might be human-shaped but they were still monsters.Or the Strawhats are a cluster and they were not quite as alone in their childhoods as people might suspect.
Relationships: Monkey D. Luffy & Mugiwara Kaizoku | Strawhat Pirates, Monkey D. Luffy & Nami, Monkey D. Luffy & Nami & Roronoa Zoro & Usopp & Vinsmoke Sanji, Nami & Nico Robin, Roronoa Zoro & Vinsmoke Sanji, Tony Tony Chopper & Usopp
Comments: 35
Kudos: 220
Collections: One Piece bests





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you that haven't seen Sense 8 before: first, you should it's lovely, second, the premise is that a group of 8 people are connected and can see, hear, and share skills with each other regardless of the distance between them. I couldn't help but wonder that would look like in the Strawhat crew and how they would react if they got to know each other earlier than in canon. So welcome to if not a better childhood for the strawhats at least a childhood where they aren't so alone! 
> 
> Each chapter focuses on a different set of strawhats interacting. Most of them can be read as short one-shots. 
> 
> Comments, kudos, and constructive criticism are all appreciated. Enjoy!

The execution block towered over the market square in Logue Town. A perpetual drizzling filled the air as a crowd gathered below. Marines were packed into the city’s narrow alleys, hands on their weapons as they waited to jump into action at the hint of any suspicious behavior. 

Rayleigh rolled his eyes. There would be no jailbreak. Not this time, no matter how much he and the others wanted to. He still had no idea how Roger had talked Edward out of it. He glanced around half expecting to see Edward’s imposing figure and distinctive white mustache looming over the crowd. 

He wasn’t here. 

Of course, he wasn’t here. 

The World Government would have a field day getting their hands on another famous pirate. That, and he wasn’t sure Roger and Edward were really on speaking terms. Not by the end of it. 

Edward and him certainly weren’t. Not when he’d called his Captain a coward for making his choice. The Captain of course had merely laughed it off and told him to wait and see. 

But for him, the first mate, it was simple. It was Captain’s orders. He knew how much Roger’s suffering increased by the day. Even if he wasn’t up on the executioner’s block, he would be dead any day now. It was just like Roger to want to go out with a bang and no regrets. 

Still, that didn’t mean he was ready to let the man go. None of them were, not even Garp, whatever the man might say to the contrary. 

Speaking of The Fist, the Vice-Admiral was nowhere to be found. It made sense. This was going to hurt and Sengoku wouldn’t want the great hero to appear weak or injured at the World Government’s moment of triumph. He had no doubt that the goat man was responsible for hiding Garp’s status as part of their cluster, probably out of fear for the man’s life. 

He’d heard the stories. The whispers as they traveled the world of the legends surrounding clusters. How, ever since the Void Century, whenever a cluster appeared they were hunted relentlessly. Once it was discovered that children were connected to others they were declared monsters and whisked away in the night never to be seen or heard from again. 

He raised his head, looking over the crowd, and saw Roger’s distinctive red coat as he was paraded through the crowd in chains. The man’s iconic straw hat was gone, passed down along with their will to one of the young cabin boys. Marines surrounded him on every side, shoving the civilians away as they tried to catch a glimpse at the infamous Pirate King. 

The man looked worse for wear. His black hair was greasy and matted to his head. He was ghostly pale and there was a thin trickle of blood dripping down from the corner of his mouth. Still, the man had his ever-present smile on his face. Raleigh locked eyes with his Captain as he passed and the man’s grin spread even wider as he approached his final moments. 

Roger was led up the scaffolding and forced onto his knees as the crowd jeered. The sharks could almost taste the blood in the water. 

The two marine executioners lifted their spears in tandem, raising them as they prepared to strike. 

Raleigh felt his breath catch in his throat. 

“But what about the treasure!?” Someone demanded from below. An uneasy murmur spread through the crowd. 

“You want my treasure?” Roger’s amused tone rang out, “You can have it. I left everything in one place.” Even the executioners seemed frozen, transfixed as the Captain’s words rolled over the crowd. 

“Go! Seek the sea. The world is larger and stranger than you can ever imagine and as long as there are those that seek freedom in this life, dreams will never die! ” 

The declaration rang out and the people were silent as if they didn’t dare to breathe. Raleigh swallowed, he knew his Captain’s dying words had just shaken the world, even if the world didn’t understand how yet. 

Roger let out a raspy laugh, and it seemed to shake the marines out of their stupor as the two executioners made eye contact. The one on the right nodded once, and then they brought their weapons down. 

The stabbing sensation ran through his chest, burning like hot pokers as they went. His teeth came down, cutting into his bottom lip as he bit down on a scream that instead, came out as a shallow moan. He clenched his fingers into his chest, trying to drive away the phantom pain. The burning was unbearable and it drove him to his knees. Through sheer force of will, his eyes don’t leave the platform. Not when it's his Captain that is suffering like this in his last moments. No doubt even as he’s bleeding out, the man was smiling and trying to keep the pain to himself.

He can feel the others shriek through their bond. He felt a tug from someone in their cluster, Shakky probably, wanting to know what the hell was going on. He ignored it. He can’t handle anything more right now. 

Roger’s form fell forward, landing flat as the marines tugged out the weapons they had just buried in the Captain’s chest. The pain began to fade and numbness took its place. 

A unanimous cheer rose up from the crowd. 

“Hey old man,” A white-haired youth asked, “You okay?”

Raleigh painted on a false smile, burying the panic he felt radiating from the bond, “Of course. All this violence is just getting to me.” 

The boy frowned, obviously still concerned, but Raleigh shook him off as he pulled up his hood. The drizzle had now transformed into a full-on downpour. Raleigh made his way through the jubilant crowd. There were cheers and the clinking of alcoholic beverages toasting to Roger’s death. This is the way Roger wanted it, but he still couldn’t shake the sense of loss that reverberated through the bond. Once upon a time, there were eight of them, now there are only six. 

Raleigh shook his head as he turned to the harbor. They’d have to be careful, Raleigh had always been suspicious that CP0 thought Roger was in a sensate. Of course, the Captain never gave an inch, not unless he wanted to. But no doubt the World Government and their Celestial Dragon masters would be chomping at the bit to find anyone that was left. They would try to ruin Roger’s legacy, once and for all. Raleigh couldn’t help but chuckle at that notion. If only they knew.

It was the end of an era and the beginning of another. The world didn’t stop turning, not even for Roger. 

He glanced up at the sky to see the clouds were growing darker and the rain was pounding harder on the roofs. He would lie low for a while. He had a feeling that a storm was coming. 


	2. The Captain and the First Mate

“I’m serious! Now I’ll show you!” Luffy yelled down at Shanks and his crew from the bow of the Red-Haired Pirates’ ship. He has a knife he found in Mikoto’s bar in his hand hidden behind his back. It feels heavier here than it did in the drawer. He doesn’t know why. 

Shanks let out a bark of laughter from down below and his crew followed along, jeering. Luffy clenched his teeth. He’d show them! He was gonna be a pirate, no matter what stupid Shanks thought. 

“Okay! Show us.” Shanks said, raising his hand in an encouraging fist, “I wonder what you’ll do this time.”

Luffy held the knife up higher. It glinted in the sun. 

“Bet it’ll be something childish!” snickered one of his crewmates.

Luffy glared at the man. It’s not childish he thought long and hard about this. A pirate had to be fearless and manly right? Well, what was more fearless than being able to stand still while a knife came at you. The only problem he had is he didn’t have any friends to help him. He’d tried to ask a few members of Shank’s crew but they’d laughed him off or ruffled his hair saying something about him being annoying but not annoying enough to stab. So Luffy had just decided to do it himself. Like a real man! 

“Hey kid, what are you doing? You’re gonna put your eye out.” 

Luffy looks down expecting to see one of Shanks' crew. Instead, he’s surprised to see a boy that’s around his age standing on the deck of the ship. The boy has on a dojo uniform with seaweed green hair. He squints at him, “I’m not gonna put my eye out, I’m gonna prove I’m a man!” 

The green haired kid snorts and crosses his arms. “Are you some kind of idiot? That’s not the way a man shows anything.”

Luffy sticks his tongue out at the kid, “What do you know? Shanks said he’ll let me join his crew when I’m a man.” 

“Yeah, well what kind of man injures himself on purpose. The real way a man acts is to never run away. Besides, you look like a weakling to me. ”

“Am not!” Luffy sticks his tongue out at the boy, “And I never run away either.” 

“Oi, Luffy who are you talking to?” Shanks asks his eyes furrowed in confusion as he looks around at his silent shipmates. 

“The stupid green headed jerk! You let him join your crew, why won’t you let me?!” 

Shanks looks more confused than anything else. The stupidhead probably forgot the boy was his crewmate, the dummy. When Luffy is a pirate he’ll never forget his crew members’ names. They’re going to be his nakama after all. 

“Kid probably has an imaginary friend, boss.” One of the scraggly pirates says shrugging, “He’s still pretty little. You know how kids are, they make believe!” 

The red haired Captain nods, but the frown doesn’t leave his face. 

“I don’t do make believe anymore!” Luffy yells at the man, “Make believe is for babies. I’m not a baby!” 

He grips the knife with both hands, pointing it towards himself. His body shakes but he can’t stop now. He’s a man and he’s going to be a pirate too! He drives the blade up towards his face. The sharp metal blade drives into the skin under his left eye. It stings badly and he pulls back quickly letting the knife drop from his hands as he clutches his cheek. 

“OWWWIE!” Luffy shrieks. 

“You idiot! What are you doing?!” Shanks yells as he runs towards him, tugging him off the bow of the ship and yelling for someone to get the ship’s doctor and bring bandages. 

“It hurts!” Luffy rolls around on the deck of the ship, his hand clutched over the left side of his face, blood is running down his fingers. 

“What did you expect!” Shanks says as he holds Luffy still and pries his hand away from his cheek. 

“Told you. My Sensei always says blades aren’t something to play with.” The boy says. He’s looking over Shanks shoulder as the man cleans his wound with some medicine that stings. 

“Still it was pretty brave of you Luffy, even if you’re being a cry baby right now,” Shanks says as he cuts a small bandage from the roll.

“I’m not being a cry baby,” Luffy mumbles, wiping away the tears and sitting as still as possible while Shanks sticks a bandage under his eye. The wound still hurts a little but not as bad as it did a few minutes ago. 

“Hey, boys, what do you say we have a party to celebrate Luffy’s courage and our coming voyage?” 

A chorus of “Yeahs!” erupted from the deck and Luffy giggled. Shanks’ crew members were so fun and he felt something warm unfurl inside him at the praise. 

The only one that wasn’t cheering was the green haired boy. His serious looking face was downturned as he looked around the chaotic deck, “Bunch of idiots. Who celebrates people being dumb?” 

“Fun people. You should come with us, Shanks always buys me juice and meat.” In Luffy’s book, anyone that frowned that much must not be getting enough to eat. It was the only explanation. 

“What’s your name anyway? I’m Monkey D. Luffy.” Luffy grinned at the boy and stuck out his hand. Shanks was watching but he didn’t say anything. Luffy took that as a good sign. If the other boy was lucky Shanks would buy him meat too. 

The boy studied Luffy but didn’t reach out to take his hand, “Roronoa Zoro, and I need to get back to training.” With that, the other boy walked into the crowd and towards the edge of the ship. Luffy watched him go but he seemed to just disappear. What a weird kid. Who turned down meat to train? It was  _ meat. _

“You sure you don’t have an imaginary friend?” Shanks asks as he follows Luffy’s line of vision. 

“No way!” He shook his head furiously, “His name’s Zoro, but I don’t think he’s from around here, he’s dressed kind of weird.” 

Shanks face pinched in a weird way, kind of like when Luffy accidentally ate sour plums, Luffy didn’t have long to think about it before Shanks was smiling again. Good, just because Zoro was all serious doesn’t mean everyone else should be, “I see, well come on. We better hurry to Mikoto’s or my crew will have drunk the place dry!” 

Luffy laughed and scrambled after Shanks. He can’t wait to be a pirate. 


	3. The Captain and the Theif

“So hungry, Luffy moaned as he clutched his hand into his rumbling stomach. Normally Ace and Sabo would be home by now with breakfast, but it was almost noon and Luffy was starving. His stupid brothers had probably gotten lost. They were extra stupid for not letting him come with them just because last time he’d almost been eaten by a bear. 

Luffy flopped onto the soft forest grass and rolled over onto his side, angrily tugging at the leafy blades under him as he yanked a few strands loose and began shredding them. It wasn’t fair. Ace and Sabo weren’t that much older than him, so why did it feel like when Shanks babied him all over again?

He rolled to his feet if that was how his brothers were gonna be, fine. He’d show them he’d practice his gum-gum pistol and then they’d have to take him. He was gonna be a pirate and pirates were strong! 

Luffy shrugged his shoulders and widened his stance as he pulled his fist back. It stretched out behind him as he punched forward. 

“Gum-gum Pistol!”

His aim was off as his fist flew forward missing his target of the nearby boulder and soaring up into the branches of a nearby tree. His straw hat went flying off as he tripped back and landed on his butt. His arm hung hopelessly tangled as it stretched across the branches and down to the ground, his hand helplessly pinned between two crossing branches. That wasn’t supposed to be what happened. Luffy tugged his hand stubbornly, but the tree wouldn’t let go. 

“Stupid plant let me go!” He yelled, pulling harder, his arm only stretched further. 

Someone giggled nearby and Luffy’s head turned around so fast that his neck twisted like a coiled rubber band. There was a girl in a yellow flowery dress leaning up against a tree watching him. 

She laughed harder as she saw his predicament, “You look like a piece of gum.” 

“I do not!”

“Do so!” And then she stuck her tongue out at him. 

Luffy jumped to his feet, he’d never seen her before. It was weird, people didn’t just come by the Mountain Bandit’s hideout and they usually screamed the first time they found out he was made of rubber. 

His arm decided that now would be a good time to retract and he was pulled forward at full force as his head slammed into the trunk of the tree. His hand still stubbornly decided not to come unstuck. 

The girl laughed again. 

“You could help me you know, I’m stuck.” 

The girl gave him a crooked smile again, “I could, but what are you going to do for me?” 

“I’ll tell my brothers not to beat you up when they get home!” 

The girl huffed out a laugh and didn’t move from her spot by the tree, “You’re not very good at this are you?” 

“Stupid girls,” Luffy said as he began to climb the tree. It’s not like he needed her help it just would have been nice. Luffy scrambled across the branches like a monkey as his arm got shorter and shorter until he finally found the two crossed branches his hand was trapped between. He lifted the top branch and his hand snapped back to him with a pop. 

The force of the retraction made his tilt back, his balance lost as his foot slipped and the ground rose up to meet him. He landed face first, and owwie that stung. 

The girl was standing over him looking concerned and in her hands was his straw hat, “Are you okay?”

Luffy rubbed his face, it hurt, he hoped it didn’t leave a bruise. He took his hand out of the girl’s hands and put it back on his head. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. His stomach growled again, echoing across the forest. 

The orange-haired girl frowned, “You’re hungry?”

“Of course, I’ve been training hard all morning.” 

The girl rolled her eyes, “You threw one punch and got stuck in a tree.” 

“Yeah, training.” 

“So are you going to eat lunch?” Luffy looked away from her until Sabo and Ace got back there wasn’t any food. Last time he went to Dandan’s she complained about him eating her out of house and home. The girl stared at him, giving him an assessing look. 

“You must be poor like me. Come on I’ll show you something useful idiot,” The girl said putting her hands on her hips as she smiled at him. Luffy grinned, it wasn’t often he got to play with other kids here. Ace and Sabo sure, but they didn’t play his brothers were training! They were gonna be pirates after all and the kids in town didn’t like to play with a dirty little bandit rat. At least that’s what they yelled at him when he came over to their games. 

He followed her and she led him through the forest until they found the path that led towards the city. 

“Why are we going into town?” The girl shushed him, but grabbed his arm and continued tugging him along until they came to a restaurant. It wasn’t anything fancy in fact it kind of reminded him of Mikoto’s bar, except it was way more boring because there were no pirates here to liven up the place. 

The girl pushed him inside and yanked him over to a little corner table. The waitstaff was eyeing him warily 

“How are we going to pay for this? Do you have money?” Luffy whispered. They didn’t really have money, none of them did. Well Sabo did sometimes and Luffy never really understood how he got it, but sometimes he’d show up with it or with other presents, that’s why Sabo was his favorite. Dandan and her mountain bandits never gave them money, they were stingy. 

The girl rolled her eyes, “Duh, we’re not. Now be quiet and let me do the talking.” 

Luffy was confused but closed his mouth. 

A server was eyeing them from between the crowded tables of the lunch rush. He was stiffly making his way towards them and Luffy gulped. Then there was a weird sensation, it kind of tingled like when he got stuck in too much water, except it didn’t make him feel tired. 

The server stood over him, clicking a pen as he stared down with a frown on his face, “Where are your parents?”

“They’re coming. They asked me to come in ahead of time and order everyone’s food since I was going to be playing with the other kids in the park and Mommy had a meeting at the town hall. They’re going to meet me here at 12:30. If I order now will the food be warm by then?” His mouth was moving but it was the girl’s words coming out. 

The man’s facade instantly softened, “Of course, what a well mannered young man. Here let me get you some menus. Do you need any help picking out dishes they’ll like?” Luffy, or the girl really, shook his head. 

The man smiled and set down a menu on the table, “Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll be back over.” Then he stepped away to refill some of the drinks for some of the nearby patrons. 

The girl grinned from beside him as she thumbed open the menu. 

Luffy felt his mouth fall open as he blurted out, “How did you do that? Are you a mind controller? Do you have a devil fruit too?”

The girl’s eyebrows crinkled, “A devil fruit? Is that what you have and why you get so stretchy? I guess that makes sense. No nothing like that. Don’t you know we’re connected? Bellamere told me stories she’s heard from all over the world. Apparently there are certain people that are so important to you that you can always find them and help them! Haven’t you met anyone like that before? My sister Nojiko is like me, but she doesn’t always see the same people.” 

Special people? “Huh, do you mean like Nakama?”

The girl frowned, “I guess. I don’t really know, she tells us stories but I’ve only met one other person before you and he had a long nose, well and my sister. It was kind of confusing the first time, but, well we can kind of share things with our special people, feelings and information and stuff.”

“That’s so cool! You know I’m going to be a captain someday!” 

“You’re joining the marines?” The girl asked, blinking like she didn’t quite follow his train of thought. 

Luffy grimaced thinking of how hard his Grandpa’s fists were, “No way. Marines are dumb.” 

“They are not! Bellamere used to be a marine and she’s awesome. She gives everyone in our village the runaround.”

“Fine,” Luffy agreed, not wanting to anger the girl if she was really going to be his Nakama, “I guess some marines are cool, but I’m gonna be a Pirate Captain and you’re gonna join my crew someday!” He declared. 

“What would I even do on a ship? I don’t know how to sail!” She argued back, “We just met and you could be some kind of liar or a crazy person. You don’t even know my name! Besides I don’t want to be a pirate.”

Luffy didn’t miss a beat as he scarfed down the carrots on the plate, “What’s your name?” 

“I’m Nami.” She said, “And you should order and be quieter before that waiter comes back,”

Luffy looked down and immediately picked the picture with a big slab of mutton and carrots. It looked tasty, “What are you getting?” 

“You do realize I’m not really here. I’m talking to you but I’m not really here, I'm still back at home.” Luffy blinked and reached out, she felt warm as he touched her arm. 

“No, you’re right here.”

Nami face-palmed, “Idiot, I already said that we were connected. You can see me and touch me, but no one else can because I’m not really here. It’s like we’re sharing a mind or something.”

“Oh, cool! Well, you should still pick something and I’ll eat it for you. If we share a brain you should be able to taste it too.”

“... I don’t think it works like that, but fine. Here,” Nami jabbed her index finger down on something under the beverage section. Luffy frowned that really didn’t seem like enough, but she also seemed like she knew way more about this than him. 

The sensation he felt earlier was back and he felt warm as Nami seemed to kind of melt into him. His hand raised and he felt his cheeks pinch up as he smiled and waved the waiter back over, “Hi mister I think I’m ready, can I get this, this and this.” Luffy’s finger waved over three different things and a request for tangerine juice. The waiter nodded as he jotted it down. 

A while later the food was brought over, and Nami in Luffy’s voice thanked them. Luffy felt as their head tilted towards the door. 

_ Gotta make them think we’re really waiting for someone.  _ A voice that sounded like Nami’s echoed in his head.

After the waiter smiled and stepped back Luffy ducked his head and whispered to Nami, “What are we gonna do now?” 

“Hush, just eat your food, and then I’ll teach you the sacred art of Dine and Dashing.” 

Luffy’s stomach growled again and he began to tuck-in. He finished his slab of meat and the carrots before Nami was pushing another plate over to him. He ate as fast as he could and everything tasted delicious. 

“Okay,” Nami said standing, “Time to go. Run!”

Luffy’s arm snaked out to grab the last uneaten plate as Nami tugged him towards the door. The waitstaff was already coming towards them and Luffy ducked low holding the plate of food carefully near his body and shoveling the finger length potatoes into his mouth as he ran. 

“Come back here you brat! Somebody catch that thief!” Luffy turned to look back and see an irate waiter yelling out the window. He ran faster. Nami laughed as they went ducking into allies as they made their way back to the forest. They were panting when they were close enough to Dandan’s that Luffy wasn’t worried about anyone following him. 

He turned to Nami eye’s sparkling, “That was great. I don’t think I’ve ever tasted food so good. You’re the best Nami!” 

Nami’s face turned as red as a tomato, “Yeah, well, food is important you know, besides most shop people are stingy and overcharge. Anyways, maybe I’ll think about being a pirate, maybe and only if you’re the captain.”

“Of course I’ll be the Captain and you’ll be my Nakama!” 

“If you’re really serious about me being Nakama you’ll have to find me first Luffy.” With a wink, Nami disappeared. 

“Hey no fair Nami! You didn’t tell me where you’re from!” He yelled into the open forest. Stupid girls, why did they have to make everything so hard. 

“Luffy where have you been!” Ace huffed running into the clearing and crossing his arms over his chest. He looked disheveled his usually messy hair was on a whole new level of shaggy desire and he looked less than happy, “We’ve been looking for you for half an hour. It’s time to eat.”

Luffy stuck out his tongue, “Not hungry.” He wasn’t about to teach his brothers his new secret skill of dine and dashing, at least not until they let him go train with them. 

“Not hungry!” Sabo screeched, “Are you sick?” Instantly Sabo had his iconic pipe down and was feeling Luffy’s forehead. 

“No,” Luffy said, batting the hand away, “I’m just not hungry. I found my first crewmate though. She’s gonna be amazing!”

Sabo and Ace shared a look before Ace uncrossed his arms, “Sure you did, Luffy. Whatever you say, but if you really think you’re gonna be a pirate with a crew you better eat. Crews don’t like weakling captains.” 

A sweet smell of something roasting over a campfire wafted towards them. Luffy raised his nose to sniff the air. It did smell kind of good, “I’m not weak! I guess I could eat some of that.” 

Sabo smiled, “Come on then.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I claiming that Nami taught Luffy how to dine and dash? Yes, yes I am you know little Nami would the worst influence on everyone. She was an absolute terror.


	4. The Cook and the Swordsman Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sanji may not be alone but that doesn't mean his childhood is any better.

They’ve just finished a  _ ‘practice’  _ bout of sword fighting in the training yard. He’d lost every single spar against his brothers while his father stood there looking angrier by the second. Sanji has more bruises than he can count. He feels like one of those pinatas he’s read about in his books. He limps off the field, his left leg dragging as he hobbles along trying to follow his tri haired brothers as they dash back to the castle for lunch. 

“Sanji!” His father bellows. 

“Yes, sir?” Sanji asks, standing ramrod straight as he meets his father’s eyes. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Through his shining golden helmet, his father has a hard look in his eyes. He doesn’t look angry or even disappointed he just looks apathetic. 

“With the others to eat?” Sanji tries to make it sound like a statement but it somehow comes out with uncertainty. He wanted so badly to make his father proud. To make him smile like his sister and brothers did. But somehow everything he did was wrong. 

“No, you’re not. You’re going to stay here in the training yard and practice until nightfall. Maybe then you’ll figure out how to make something of yourself, failure.” His father hisses as he turns to leave, his cape fluttering behind him. Yonji snickers from behind their father and follows him but not before stepping out of his way to elbow Sanji in the stomach. 

He laughs and throws him a savage grin as Sanji topples to the side, his muscles protesting as he falls but unable to move quickly enough to regain his balance. He lands face down in the dirt and turns his head to watch the pair of well-made boots disappear across the practice yard. 

* * *

Sanji has been chopping on the same practice dummy for two hours. He can barely raise his arms anymore. His muscles ache and his arms are shaking even holding the sword at waist level. He has no idea how much longer until it gets dark and tomorrow he’ll probably have to do this all over again. He bites back tears of frustration, rubbing furiously at his prickling eyes. Tears won’t help him and they certainly won’t get him any sympathy here. 

His stomach rumbles and he places his hand on his abdomen. He’s hungry. He hasn’t eaten anything since before morning training. He wishes he could sneak off to the kitchen and watch them cook. There’s something magical about the way the bread rises down there and the pots bubble. His mouth is salivating at the thought. 

Sanji glances around and sees the familiar stare of sentry guards standing just at the edge of the grounds. They have spears and are dressed in the standard white germa armor. He gulps and tries to swing his sword again. He knows if he leaves one of the sentries will report to his father. However horrible this is he knows there are far worse things. 

“It’s no wonder you keep losing your form is all wrong.” a boy's voice echoes across the field. Sanji jumps, raising the sword as he turns around. He sees green hair and instantly flinches. 

Yonji! What is his brother doing back here ? 

He tenses and lets his eyes drop to the ground, expecting to feel an iron fist crack against his skull or grind hard into his stomach. Minutes pass and he feels nothing. It’s starting to worry him and he gathers his courage and dares to sneak a look up. 

His eyes pause a moment on the green hair, then he frowns it's cut shorter and more raggedly than it was in the sparring sessions this morning. He continues looking, his brain finally registering what he’s seeing. A boy around his age with tan skin and bright green hair. The boy has a scowl on his face and has two bamboo swords tucked away in a sash on his waist. The boy is wearing a dark green training uniform with two clashing red swords stitched over his heart. The boy also looks a little muddy and isn’t wearing any shoes.    
  


Whoever this is, it isn’t Yonji. His brother would never be caught dead looking like this. It was an easy enough mistake to make when the only person you’ve ever met with the same shade of hair is one of your twin brothers. 

“Who are you? And how did you get in here?” 

The boy shrugs his shoulders and stares at Sanji’s sword. Sanji bristles. None of the other servants would dare to treat him like this even if he was the less favored son he was still a Vinsmoke. 

“I asked you a question.” Sanji snaps, raising his sword threatening. He’s not going to use it, seeing people bleed makes him queasy, but the other boy doesn’t know that. 

The boy raises one eyebrow at him and looks distinctly unimpressed, “I’m Zoro, dartbrows-”

“Dartbrows!” Sanji interrupts angrily. 

Zoro ignores him and continues talking, “And I was just taking a walk. I had a feeling… then I heard swords clashing and decided to stay and watch. The other dartbrows were pretty good.” 

He’d watched the whole training session? Even the fight with his brothers? That would mean he’d been here for hours. How had the sentries and his family not noticed? Sanji knew if they’d seen the unfamiliar boy he wouldn’t be here now, he’d be dead or down in the dungeons. 

“You’re lying. There’s no way you could have been here the whole time.”

The other boy has drifted closer, his eyes locked on Sanji’s sword, “Believe what you want. Say can I hold your sword?” The green-haired boy looks downright giddy as he looks at the weapon. 

Sanji wants to say no but this is the first conversation he’s had in weeks that hasn’t ended in punches. Still, the boy is a stranger and it is a weapon. What if the boy’s an assassin? He sneaks another look at the boy who has a wide smile painted on his face as he tilts his head and stares at the sword from different angles. He doesn’t seem that scary. 

“O-okay.” He holds the sword out and opens his hand as the other boy takes the sword. Zoro gives it a mock air swing. 

“Huh, it’s not as good as Kuina’s sword.” The boy mutters, turning the sword in his hand. 

Then he slides in front of the dummy and the tension seems to slide from his body as in one swift motion he swipes forward. The heavy wood of the training dummy splinters as the sword cuts it clean in half. The head and half the chest of the dummy fall to the dirt with a clunk. 

“Wow. It’s pretty sharp though, here.” The boy grins and holds out the sword. 

Sanji doesn’t take it. “How did you do that?” 

The other boy shrugs, “I train a lot. Besides, it’s not like you couldn’t do that too if you had the right stance. Like I said you only lost because your form sucks.”

Sanji doesn’t even think about his next words, “Can you teach me how to do that?” 

The boy's eyes widen in surprise, he’s still holding the sword, half outstretched like he’s still waiting for Sanji to snatch it away. Then he pulls back lowering the sword before he nods. 

“I suppose you can’t really get much worse. But I get to practice with this sword. My Sensei never lets us use one and it's a pain to always have to sneak past him.” Zoro reaches down for his sash and pulls out the two bamboo swords, handing one to Sanji.“Fine, but we better start with these. I don’t want you to cut a finger off or something.” 

Sanji’s surprised to feel that it’s light and the bamboo is smooth to the touch. The Germa have never used practice swords like this. His father had insisted they use real steel. He takes a tentative swipe and Zoro scowls. 

“Not like that!” Your foot works all wrong. Here,” Zoro uses the other practice sword to widen Sanji’s stance, “You have to always have a firm stance or you lose power in the swing.” 

Sanji nods and tries the swing again. Zoro grouches and makes a motion for him to lower his shoulders. It goes on like this on repeat. Sanji swinging and Zoro poking him with his wooden sword making him move an inch there or bend more there. Sanji’s body still aches but he tries his best. 

Finally, Zoro seems satisfied with the progress and then he drives Sanji to keep repeating the sword strike against the dummy again and again. Sanji groans who would have thought the stupid looking mosshead would be such a taskmaster? 

Sanji is drenched in sweat and can barely stand when Zoro calls for him to stop. 

Sanji collapses on his back panting hard. He looks up to see the sky only to see the faint twinkling of stars in the purpling sky. 

Zoro follows his gaze, “Guess I got carried away. It’s about time for dinner.” Zoro sets the sword down and collects the two practice swords sliding them back into his sash as he saunters towards the main gate. 

“Hey wait-” Sanji calls after him, “Will you be here again tomorrow?” 

The other boy grins, “Sure dartbrow. Who knows we might make a decent fighter out of you yet?” 

“My name’s Sanji!” He yells back but the boy is already walking away. Sanji finds himself smiling despite everything. 

Maybe if Zoro comes back tomorrow. It won’t be so bad. For the first time in a long time, he feels something hopeful in his chest. Maybe with Zoro’s help, he could finally catch up with his brothers and then... well if he was strong everything would be better. 

* * *

It continues like this for weeks. Sanji gets throttled by his siblings early in the morning in whatever weapon or fighting style his Father decides and is then ordered to train by himself until dark. Despite the new bruises, he feels happier than he has in a long time. 

Zoro will appear sometime in the training field and he’ll start Sanji on various exercises. Sometimes he’ll join in and sometimes he’ll do his own thing. 

One day he announces that they’re going to spar. Sanji is surprised. Other than the time with the dummy, he’s never seen Zoro actually use a sword, practice, or otherwise. The boy has more training swords than usual today too. He has a total of three. 

He nods and Zoro tosses him one of the bamboo blades. He then pulls the other two out placing one in each hand. Sanji raises his eyebrows, but Zoro shrugs, “I thought three swords might be too hard for you right now.” 

Too hard? Sanji would show him! Who heard about anyone using two swords, let alone three? Where was the mosshead going to put it in his mouth? The idea was so silly it made Sanji want to laugh. He gripped the practice sword and fell into the familiar wide stance. 

Then they were off. 

There was a flash of green and Sanji felt a stinging sensation on his fingers, he dropped the sword and Zoro had the other practice blade at his throat. 

He swallowed hard as he stared at the other boy's crooked grin. Maybe two swords wasn’t such a dumb idea. 

* * *

Sanji wins his first spar with Zoro in another week. The two of them had sized up the other’s moves and now their duels were longer each waiting for an opening. The spars were intense but somehow more friendly than anything he’d ever done with his siblings. There was the added bonus that no matter how bad the bamboo swords bruised Sanji knew Zoro was never going to take his head off with one of them. 

Sanji also had a feeling that if Zoro ever wanted to take his head off it wouldn't be an accident. He was scarily precise with a sword. 

He swiped wide during their fight and Sanji didn’t even think as he went low and kicked one of Zoro’s legs out from under him. The other boy wobbled and fell on his butt into the dirt. Sanji raised his practice sword up to the other's chest, “Yield.” 

Zoro sat with his mouth open like he couldn’t believe what had just happened. He finally growled at Sanji and stood up. His face was beet red. Sanji laughed as the other boy dusted off the back of his training clothes. 

Zoro glared at him and Sanji shut up. He gulped. What if he pissed him off? What if Zoro left and didn't come back? He couldn’t go back to the way things were before. It was just so lonely. 

“I’m sorry!’ Sanji called. 

“Sorry for what curlycue? Winning? Just don’t let it go to your ego, it was a one-time thing.” The other boy grouched as he crept back into the familiar starting pose. 

Sanji smiled. 

* * *

The day was finally here! He could feel it. As soon as they trot out onto the field he sees the sword rack. It was going to happen today he was going to beat one of his brothers! 

He’d been training non-stop with Zoro for the last month and he could tell he was getting better. Zoro still thought that kicking out an opponent's feet when you were sword fighting was a cheap trick but their fights were getting better and Zoro had him training with the real sword now. He’d even managed to cut one of the dummies in half by himself! 

He’s practically bubbling with excitement as he follows his brothers onto the field that morning. His father gestures for them to pair up, as always Reiju smiles and watches from beside their Father. She never has to fight in the first round. 

Their Father gestures for them to each take a blade and they do. Sanji grips the hilt waiting to see which of his brothers he’ll be fighting. He knows his brothers have been learning more advanced techniques and other weapons, while he’s confined nearly alone to the practice yard all day. But that won’t stop him. Zoro is a good training partner and teacher and he knows his way around swords. He won’t let him down. 

He glances around instinctively to see if Zoro’s here. Sometimes he is in the morning sometimes he’s not. Sanji still has no idea how he gets in or where he’s from but that doesn’t stop him from feeling relieved when he meets familiar grey eyes. 

His teacher yawns and gives him a nod of assurance from the side of the training field. No one else seems to notice he’s there but Sanji smiles at him. 

His Father points two fingers at Ichiji and Niji and the two grin at each other and then begin swiping with their swords, darting around as they go. Then he turns and points two fingers at Yonji and him. Sanji gulps and sinks into the familiar sword stance, his knees bending as he raises his sword just above waist level. 

He barely has his sword raised before his brother is flying at him, slashing at where his head just was. 

With the green hair, it would be easy to mistake Yonji for Zoro. Easy for his body to relax and think that this was a normal practice spar, but it wasn’t and if he let his guard down well… his brother had a sadistic grin painted on. 

There’s a clash of steel as Sanji swipes and his brother blocks. Sanji pivots his foot, throwing Yonji off balance as he pulls back for another thrust. 

Yonji’s grin darkens as he realizes that Sanji isn’t just going to be his pin cushion. Suddenly the blows are coming faster and harder. Sanji focuses on his feet and doesn’t lose his balance, stepping back only when there’s no other way to block. 

His brother is fast and strong. Sanji can feel his muscles strain with every strike he blocks. But Sanji is quick himself and after several minutes of back and forth, he has his style pinned. Unlike Zoro, who fights like a tiger more instinct than rationality, his brother is methodical, clearly, he’s been trained in certain combos and he doesn’t deviate. 

So Sanji waits. He waits until his brother is midway through a combo, his arm all the way extended as he tries to cut at Sanji’s belly. But Sanji isn’t looking at his sword, he's looking at his feet. His feet that are too close together to be stable. 

Sanji dives to the right and swings his sword out with all his strength behind it. Yonji’s eyes widen as he pulls his sword back to block. It’s too late though. He gets his sword up in time but he can’t stop all of the force Sanji put behind it. 

Yonji is toppling over his right knee giving way and Sanji follows him down diving his sword right next to his brother’s head. Yonji looks shocked. His mouth opens like a fish as his eyes flicker between Sanji’s face and the sword centimeters away from his ear. His sword is still clasped to his chest and Sanji kicks it away before he looks up. 

All his siblings are staring at him with wide eyes. Reiju has her hand over her mouth in shock and even Niji and Ichiji seem to have stopped their spar to watch. Sanji glances over at the looming figure of his Father in full armor. 

For once his Father is actually looking at him. He feels something warm spread across his cheeks. He looks at Zoro who gives him a smile and a small nod of approval. He feels lighter. 

“Again,” His Father orders and Sanji lifts his swords up again, determination blooming inside of him. He could do this! With what Zoro showed him he could actually beat his brothers. Then maybe they would stop always picking on him. Then maybe his Father wouldn’t always look at him like he was less than dirt. 

Sanji beats Yonji three more times before his Father is satisfied. Yonji looks nearly purple in the face with rage and he’s yelling about how Sanji must have cheated somehow. Sanji looks at their father to see what he’ll do. 

“Ichiji.” He says, his oldest brother grins, his bright red hair bobbing as he steps onto the field rushing at him. 

Sanji fumbles but manages to get his sword up to block. The steel hisses as the swords collide. Ichiji’s grin falters momentarily before it widens and he’s swinging twice as hard and fast as Yonji did. 

Sanji does his best to stay out of the way, bobbing and weaving. He feels metal slide across his cheek and something warm slips down his chin. Where Yonji was all hot-headed strength Ichiji was cold rationale. There was no mistake to exploit, every move was performed to perfection. 

“Quit running away crybaby!” Niji yells from the sidelines. Sanji hears Yonji snicker but he doesn’t have any time for anything other than his oldest brother trying to hack into him. His strikes were merciless. 

Sanji grits his teeth and tightens his grip on his sword. He dives left, narrowly dodging the blade as it whooshes over his head. He couldn’t win at this rate. He was tired from his previous fights and Ichiji was nearly fresh, not to mention all of his siblings never seemed to tire, at least not like he did. 

He was panting when Ichiji swung his sword at him. Sanji jumped back or tried to but Ichiji darted forward and sent his right foot forward delivering a swift kick to his stomach. Sanji went flying back, hitting the wall with a crack. The stone splintered around him leaving a dent as he dropped to the ground. 

The air instantly left his lungs and black spots danced in his vision. 

He heard Ichiji laugh as he stepped closer, “I knew you beating Yonji was a fluke. You’re as weak as ever.” 

Sanji is still dazed as he hears Ichiji’s footsteps approaching. He rolls forward onto his hands and knees trying to push his body up. He groans as he manages to get onto his feet and pick up his sword. The world is still spinning around him and Ichiji is still laughing. 

Ichiji has a mean look in his eye. He looks like a demon as he shuffles closer, the sword held high ready to strike. Sanji’s heartbeats as he waits for his brother to make his move. 

Ichiji darts forward. His sword straight in perfect form for a lunge.

Sanji knows he can’t take the force of the strike; the force alone would knock him flat and that with Ichiji looking for blood was a bad combination. His mind races as the steel seems to move towards him in slow motion. 

He moves to the right, side-stepping the blade completely. His brother’s form is fine but he’s open just like Zoro was all those weeks ago. Sanji kicks out aiming for the knee. His foot collides and his brother crumples to the ground. 

And just like that time seems to start again. 

Sanji’s panting and the world is still a little wobbly around the edges, but Ichiji is looking at him from the dirt, his mouth wide open in shock. 

It’s instinct. It has to be. There’s no other way he could have done that. His sword is nearly forgotten suddenly feels heavy in his hand. He looks from it to his brother’s fallen form. 

A smile breaks across his face! He’d really done it. He’d really beat Ichiji at something! He turns to face his Father who nods at him and then tilts his head towards the weapons rack, “You’re done for the day.” 

Sanji can’t believe it. He’ll actually have free time today! He can go to the kitchens. He practically skips to the weapons rack and places the hilt of his sword back in its holder, humming to himself. 

“Watch out!” Zoro’s voice calls out in alarm and Sanji’s eyes dart to where he knew Zoro was standing to see what happened. He catches the flicker of red hair and a glimmer of steel from over his shoulder too late as Ichiji slashes his sword aiming straight for his back. 

Suddenly Zoro wasn’t across the field. He was behind him. He could feel Zoro’s arms on him, guiding him like they were one person instead of two, as he spun around to face the oncoming sword. 

Sanji has already put his sword back on the rack, they have nothing but their bare hands. Sanji’s scared but sheer determination that’s not his own ripples across his mind. The voice sounds oddly like Zoro as it whispers  _ it’ll be alright we’ve got this _ . 

The sword arcs down and Sanji wants to flinch away but his arms come up steadily and quick as lightning his hands snap together closing in on the sword. 

The sword stops. Trapped neatly between their closed palms. There’s not so much as a scratch on them as Sanji feels Zoro guiding his arms to jerk to right. The shock of the sudden move coupled with the unexpected stopping of the sword has Ichiji dropping the sword as Zoro tosses it into their other hand. 

“Scum,” Zoro says but it comes out in Sanji voice.

Sanji wants to stop it there. He doesn’t want to hurt Ichiji, but the soothing voice in his head is angry, it’s spitting like a caged dragon. 

Sanji feels his body move. They’re darting to the left sword in hand and swiping down in the same move Ichiji had just tried to use on them. Blood flies out. Ichiji gasps as he falls flat on his face. 

“Swords on the back are a swordsman’s shame.” Sanji’s voice mockingly calls out. But those aren’t his words, those are Zoro’s. Sanji looks at the blood and wants to throw up. The field is silent. 

As quickly as the feeling of togetherness appears, it goes. Sanji feels Zoro slip away from him; he glances beside him expecting to see the boy there. But he’s not. He’s nowhere and Sanji is alone.

His stomach is rolling as he looks down at his elder brother. Bright red blood nearly the color of his hair is spilling onto the dirt. Sanji feels his knees go to jello and he drops to the ground gagging as stomach bile forces its way up his throat. He heaves, his stomach cramping as he’s sick on the ground. 

He glances up as footsteps approach. His father stands over him, staring, really looking at him as he snaps orders at the Germa men to take Ichiji to medical. There’s something in his eyes, something Sanji doesn’t understand. It isn’t pride though. 

Sanji looks around the field. He can’t stand the look in his father’s eyes. Yonji looks drained of his earlier anger but he and Niji have matching looks of absolute loathing in their eyes. He flinches away and instinctively looks to Reiju for reassurance. His sister’s complexion is pale and she has her hand fisted into her shirt. A look of total horror is painted across her normally jovial features. Sanji dips his head so he doesn’t have to look at her as he shuffles to the side allowing the stretcher carrying Ichiji to pass him. 

His elder brother’s eyes glare at him from the side of the stretcher. They radiate hate, even from across the field Sanji can tell if his brother had a weapon he would try to impale him with it. Sanji shivers. How did this go so wrong? 

His father dismisses them after this. He simply says training is done for the day and his siblings dart off in various directions. Sanji turns to go too. He wants nothing more than to curl up in his room with his hidden stash of cookbooks. 

“Sanji,” his father says, his firm voice freezing Sanji in place.

“Yes, Father?”

“Some of the servants have been telling me stories about you. How you’re talking to yourself.” 

His eyes widen and it's too late to keep the recognition off his face. Sanji flinches. He couldn’t tell his father about Zoro. Zoro was his only friend even after everything that happened today. 

“The sentries say for the last month you’ve been battling the air.” Sanji freezes. That wasn’t true! That couldn’t be true. He’d been with Zoro. Couldn’t they see that? 

“I suppose it was in the realm of possibilities given your other instabilities compared to your siblings. Tell me Sanji, what have you been seeing?” 

Ice runs through his veins as he stands there, “I… nothing Father.” 

His Father’s hand comes rushing out striking him across his face and knocking him to the ground. He holds a hand up to his stinging cheek. It starts to swell immediately. 

“Don’t lie to me boy.” His Father growls his eyes narrow and angry. 

Sanji shuffles his shoes in the dirt not meeting his Father’s eyes. “Just someone, he practices swords with me. They’re real though Father I swear!” 

His Father grimaces before shaking his head. He brings his hand up to stroke his beard as he thinks, “It’s either psychosis or I perhaps some sort of identity disorder? Maybe a separation and awakening of your more violent tendencies?” 

“Psychosis? What’s that Father?” 

“Hallucinations. The mind playing tricks on the weak. No doubt it’s a result of your Mother’s meddling.” 

“It wasn’t real?” Sanji asks weakly, Zoro wasn’t real. Zoro was all in his head. Tears start to gather in the corner of his eyes and slip down his cheeks. They sting as they cross the open scratch from the fight and the swelling from the slap. 

His father isn’t listening though, “I’ll have to have the Doctors check to be certain. I can’t have this happening to any of your brothers. At least they don’t seem to be defective. Not like you.” His Father turns away from him still thinking aloud. “I’ll have the scientists rerun the DNA to be certain of course.” 

Sanji blinks the wetness out of his eyes as he turns and runs in the opposite direction towards his room. This is the worst day he’s ever had. He just wants to see his Mother. 

* * *

It takes no time at all for Ichiji to recover between his brothers’ fast healing and Germa technology. By the time medical is finished the scar is barely visible. Sanji tries his best to stay out of his brothers’ way. Ever since he beat Ichiji his Father hasn’t made him come down to morning training. 

His father had him in medical almost every day. They poke and prod and ask him questions. He’s told them everything he knows about Zoro and they’d frowned and jotted down their notes. Sanji can’t say he really likes it. In fact, he doesn’t really get most of it. 

They ask him if he has memory gaps. If he has strange injuries he doesn’t remember getting. If he wakes up in strange places. 

The questions make him want to laugh. Sure he had injuries all the time but those weren’t from Zoro they were from his brother’s ambushes. And waking up in a hallway alone after being knocked out by his brother’s wasn’t a new thing. 

He knows better than to tell the white-coated scientists that. Sanji does his best to toe the line so they won’t tell his father he’s being uncooperative. 

Sometimes they tell him that they want to talk to Zoro. 

It feels like a gut punch every time when Sanji has to tell them that Zoro isn’t here. They ask him if he feels guilty or depressed. He never knows what to say to that. 

When they get done frowning and taking notes they’ll send him out and he’s free for the rest of the day. 

Medical poking aside, Sanji's been fine by himself. He’s been reading about the ocean and devil fruit. He decides that the only devil fruit he would ever want to eat is the Suke Suke no mi. There would be nothing better than to turn invisible. Then he could sneak past his Father’s guards and visit his Mother or the kitchens whenever he wants! 

He tells this and more to the mouse in his room, his newest and currently only friend. He hasn’t seen Zoro since the fight and he’s both sad and relieved by that fact.

He’s been keeping himself occupied practicing recipes. He even thinks he’s getting better, or at least the mouse now seems willing to eat what he’s made. All in all, he’s enjoying himself. 

Today he’s in one of the unused kitchens in the palace. He’s baking a strawberry mousse cake and it smells heavenly. The buttercream frosting was whipped, and okay he might have made a bit of a mess with that but at least this time he’d let the cake cool and the frosting wasn’t melting on it. It was almost done and he couldn’t wait to surprise his Mother. She loved strawberries. 

Sanji hums to himself as he frosts. He smiles as he sees the light pink frosting, he carefully places a few cut strawberries on top. 

It was perfect! 

He wipes his brows. His mom is gonna love this. 

There’s a chorus of snickering behind and he hears the clicking of the door swinging shut. 

Sanji’s stomach drops. He turns around slowly and finds all of his brothers there looking like cats that just found a canary to play with. 

“Look, Sanji thinks he’s some kind of servant.” Niji cackles pointing to the cake and Sanji’s flour-covered apron. 

“He should have been a servant instead of princes like us,” Yonji agrees as he looks hungrily at the cake, “Give that here servant boy!” He says sticking his hand out haughtily. 

“No,” Sanji says, shaking as he blocks the cake from view with his body, “It’s not for you.”

“Is that any way to talk to your betters, peasant?” Ichiji says slowly, his face hard. Niji and Yonji’s carnivorous smiles grow wider as they step forward. Yonji delivers a swift punch to his stomach and Sanji falls forward, his abdomen aching as Niji laughs and steps around him to grab the cake. His blue-haired brother takes off for the door. 

“No!” Sanji yells, chasing after him only to be blocked by Ichiji who kicks him headfirst into the corridor wall. 

“You need to learn your place!” Ichiji growls as his foot comes down hard on Sanji’s wrist. A snapping sound fills the air and Sanji howls. His wrist feels like molten lava, “And that’s below us!” 

It hurt! His wrist felt raw and even the slightest tremor made it seem like every nerve in his arm was on fire. It hung at an odd angle to the right. He bites down on his lip and whimpers, clutching his arm close to him and curling protectively around it. 

It was broken. 

Ichiji circles around him like a shark, a crazed look in his eye while Yonji and Niji stand to the side watching. Sanji shivers, they have him trapped, there's nowhere to go. Niji is still holding the cake. His two brothers seem to sense him looking at the cake as they grin and both scoop out a chunk of cake shoving it into their faces. 

“Tastes like shit!” Yonji says through his chewing. Niji takes another big bite, frosting smears its way across his face. 

“That was for mom!” Sanji growls at them. His brothers freeze and look at him. It was something they didn’t talk about. None of them talked about her. Sanji wasn’t even sure if they saw her. 

Niji stops chewing and looks at Ichiji. Ichiji just kicks him again. 

“Good thing she didn’t eat it then. She’d probably die.” 

Sanji feels like he’s just been slapped. It wasn’t bad. He was sure of it. 

“Yeah,” Yonji adds in throwing the rest of the cake on the ground and stomping on it, “It wasn’t fit for pigs!” 

Sanji can’t take it. His brothers had to be lying. He jumps up from his protective crouch and rushes for Yonji, knocking him off the cake. 

It seems like this is just what his brothers were waiting for. In a flash, they’re on him. Punches and kicks coming from every direction. Sanji hunches low covering his wrist with his body and using his other arm to cover his head. 

“If it wasn’t fit for bigs why’d you eat it then? You must be worse than pigs!” Sanji knows he’s not in any position to make his brothers angry but he can’t help it. They ruined it. It was for mom and they ruined it. It wasn’t fair and it feels like someone just took glass and shoved it into his chest. It hurt worse than anything his brothers were doing. He’d worked so hard-

Suddenly all he can see is pink and he smells strawberries as his face is shoved down in the remains of the cake on the floor. The side of his face aches from the force of the move. 

“Eat it piggy!” Yonji says, pushing harder on the back of his head. Sanji clenches his jaw, refusing to acknowledge the tears in his eyes. He’s not going to cry in front of his brothers. 

“I said eat it!” 

Footsteps echo down the hall and his brothers' freeze as a large shadow that can only be their father descends on them. 

“Father help!” Sanji says, Yonji’s grip loosening enough for him to raise his face and rest his chin on the floor. He reaches for him with his good arm as he passes by. His Father stares down taking in the scene and looking pointedly at the frosting and Sanji’s apron that is still tied around his waist. He shakes his head once and then turns and continues down the hallway as if nothing happened. 

His brothers’ grins widen. In the lighting, Sanji swears they look like demons. Then the barrage of pain comes. 

Sanji screams. 

* * *

When Sanji wakes up he’s alone in the hallway and it's dark except for the flickering torches. He’s lying in something wet and it hurts to even breathe. It feels sticky, probably the frosting his brain supplies. It's odd because he can’t smell anything. Not the salt of the blood or the strawberries. Nothing. 

“Why didn’t you fight back?” A quiet voice asks next to him. He tilts his head slightly and hisses in anguish from even the slightest movement. He finds Zoro is sitting next to him, his back resting against the stone wall. He’s clenching a bamboo sword to his chest and he looks angrier than Sanji has ever seen him. 

“What’s the point?” Sanji bites out, his lips are swollen and he can taste the blood leaking into his mouth from his split lip, “I win once and look what they do to me. It’s worse than if I would have lost.”

Zoro’s eyes widen at the information as he looks down at Sanji before he leans down and offers him a hand. Sanji looks away. He knows the boy’s not really here. He can’t be. It’s what his Father said, psychosis because he’s broken, a failure. 

His head hurts and he has funny black spots in his vision. He must have a concussion or worse brain damage from all of the hits his brothers gave him. 

He ignores the hand and he ignores Zoro. 

If he waits long enough Reiju would find him. He knows she might laugh at him first and if she was here earlier she would have been laughing with them, but she always did that. Usually, she would slink away and find a first aid kit and then come back and help him. Well, at least that’s what she did when she was in a good mood. He hoped she was in a good mood today. 

“Oi, take my hand you stupid blond.” The mosshead says again, sticking his hand right back in Sanji’s line of sight. Sanji ignores it. Then a warm hand is pulling at his broken wrist and he’s wailing. 

The hand instantly drops his wrist and Zoro jumps back, “What’s wrong?!”

“My wrist is broken.” Zoro’s eyes narrow and he mutters something that sounds vaguely like a curse but it's too fast and in a dialect, Sanji isn’t familiar with. Then two arms are under him and hauling him to his feet. The world spins and Sanji feels bile rising in his throat. 

“Which one is your room?” Zoro prodes as he pulls him down the hallway. Even if he is hallucinating, Sanji thinks dazedly at least Zoro’s kind of nice. 

“Hey don’t pass out on me!” Zoro says, poking his face. Sanji groans. 

“Ss far away. Ssides you’re from my head you sho’ld already kno.” Sanji slurs out. Zoro grimaces and keeps on tugging him down the hallway. Sanji promptly blacks out. 

When he comes to the next time his pain is only slightly less and he’s in his own bed. He expects to see Reiju by his bedside, maybe carving apples. She does that sometimes after a particularly bad beating. Instead, he sees familiar green hair. 

“See I knew you knew where my room is.” Sanji says and Zoro jumps slightly apparently dozing in the chair by his bed, “You had to since I made you up.” 

Zoro rolls his eyes, “I did not I just put you in the first half normal room I found and you did not make me up. I doubt you could be that imaginative with how often you get hit in the head.” 

Sanji giggles despite himself, “I don’t know why you’re still here. I’ll never touch a sword again. I swear it. I read about psychosis and split personalities they’re supposed to have triggers. I’m not gonna touch them again so you can go away now. ” 

All Sanji can think is he lost time, just like the doctors kept asking about. They were right, he lost time and woke up somewhere he wasn’t before. 

_ Zoro wasn’t real.  _

Zoro frowns but says nothing as he peers at Sanji like Sanji’s an idiot or missing something. 

“Do whatever you want.” The green-haired boy finally says, he sounds angry and Sanji flinches back. 

“It won’t matter if you touch a sword or not. Someday I’m going to be the world’s greatest swordsman and then I’ll come find you and kick all your brothers’ asses!” 

Sanji starts laughing. His chest heaving, it hurts but he can’t help it. It's so ridiculous. His delusion wants to be the world’s greatest swordsmen. Some part of his brain thinks it can do that. Thinks he could beat his brothers and just walk away. It's so funny. But still, Zoro looks so sincere about it. His father was right, Zoro was just some sort of figment made up of his violence. After all, it was Zoro that cut Ichiji. 

“Okay,” Sanji wheezes, managing to get words out past the laughing, “when you come do that I’ll watch.” 

Zoro gives him a crooked grin, “Sure curly brows.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a lot longer and a lot darker than many of the other character interactions. Sanji just has such a dark past and this story reflects that loneliness more for him and Robin than a lot of the other characters. As always reviews and kudos are much appreciated!


	5. The Rubberman and the Sniper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luffy meets another one of his Nakama

For once it’s not one of his Nakama visiting Luffy. No, he’s visiting one of his special people and he’s finding them first. It seems like a very captain thing to do and he is going to be the captain. Now if only he could find them. 

He’s pretty sure it’s not Nami, mostly because she usually announces herself right away and then Luffy jumps on her to give her a hug. She pretends to hate it but Luffy knows better. 

He knows lots of things about his future crewmate. Like that she wants to draw a map of the world! Luffy had declared her his map person right there. Sure, he really wanted a cook and musician first, but a map person sounded good too, especially if that map person was Nami. 

Nami called him stupid and said that ships didn’t have map people they had cartographers or navigators who could read maps. Luffy didn’t really care, he would call her whatever made her happy as long as she told him where to find her when he finally set off to sea. 

Right now though, she keeps saying vague stuff that makes no sense just to mess with him. He knows she’ll come around though, she’s his Nakama. 

Ever since that first visit with Nami Luffy has tried to remember if he’s met any of his other special people. When Nami visits him he always asks her if she’s met any of the others. She hasn’t yet, but that’s not going to stop him. He doesn’t know how many of them there are, but he knows he’s going to find them. 

Luffy looks around the quiet village, there’s a few sheep dotting the landscape and he can see the town square from up here on this hill. It seems peaceful. He doesn’t see anyone nearby though and frowns. Why was finding his crew so hard?

He hears a thwack and then the tinkling sound of glass shattering and cocks his head to the side, listening. There, there it was again. He trails after the sound and finds a little dirt path. Up around the bend of the hill, there’s a makeshift archery range dozens of glass bottles are sitting in a rocky dugout of the hill. They’re precariously balanced high and low and in the distance, Luffy can see a boy in a green bandana with a long nose focusing intently before pulling back a slingshot. 

There’s a ratatat as the long-nosed boy fires and then another bottle shatters. He pulls the slingshot back six times and hits the glass bottles dead in the center, shattering them every time. 

“SOOO COOOL!” Luffy yells at the top of his voice. This guy was like a sniper, a real sniper just like some of the people on Shank’s crew! It was amazing Luffy never had any luck when practicing shooting at anything. It’s obvious this guy is Nakama and he’s a sniper too. He’s perfect; he has to join his crew. 

Luffy doesn’t even notice when his arms are stretching out towards the other boy like he would with Nami to wrap her up in an elastic hug. The boy definitely notices though and begins screaming at the top of his lungs. 

“Ahhhh a monster is coming for me! Someone help!” The long-nosed slingshot boy shrieks as he takes off running in the opposite direction. 

Luffy frowns. That’s not fair he just found him. They haven’t even met yet. Doesn’t he know this isn’t how you’re supposed to treat your special people?

“No, I’m not a monster!” Luffy yells as he runs to catch up, “I’m just a rubberman!” He stretches his arms out after his Nakama, grabbing a nearby tree to pull himself forward. He shoots himself at the other boy like a rocket and slams into his fleeing back 

“Whoops,” Luffy says with a grin as he sits up. 

The other boy has a bloody nose and his eyes are wide. As soon as he sees Luffy looking at him he drops down to the ground in a bow, “Please don’t eat me! Monster! I have _soscaredyimightdieitis_ it’s fatal. If you eat me you’ll die!” 

Luffy busts out laughing, his new crewmate is so funny. “I’m not a monster. I’m a rubberman! I ate the gomu gomu no mi and now I’m made of rubber.” He pulled his check all the way down to demonstrate his stretchiness. 

The boy’s mouth fell open in a wide oh, he seemed to be at a loss for words. Maybe the boy lived in the woods and never heard of devil fruit before? That seemed weird though because Luffy lived in the woods and everyone he knew, knew what a devil fruit was. 

“Of course the Great Captain Usopp knew that!” Then the boy is on his feet, laughing loudly with his long nose in the air, “I was just testing you. You passed!” 

“You’re a captain! That’s great, have you met the rest of our Nakama!? Of course, I’m gonna be a captain too, and we can’t both be the captain. Maybe you’ll have to get a different ship. Hmm, but that wouldn’t be as fun because then we wouldn’t be on the same ship.” 

The boy stops laughing and looks at him like he’s not quite sure what to say. Luffy sticks out his hands, Ace had been trying to teach him manners. “I’m Monkey D. Luffy and I’m gonna be King of the Pirates.” 

“Oh, uh, well- I’m the Great Captain Usopp Brave Warrior of the sea and I supposed I can allow the future Pirate King to stay on my island. Just not too long because it is my island.” Usopp rambled. 

“Thanks! So will you join my pirate crew? You can be our sniper! I’m the captain see, and we already have a map person-”

“A navigator you mean?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Luffy waved his hand, “Now we just need a musician and a cook and we basically have a whole crew! Of course, I’m waiting for our Nakama. I’m not just letting anyone in my crew. It’s gotta start with our special people.” 

“Right,” The other boy blinks again like he’s not quite listening to what Luffy is saying, "So you’re made of rubber and you want to be a pirate?” Luffy nods, maybe his new crewmate was listening. He seemed pretty smart, “And you want me to join you?” Luffy nods again, “Right now?”

“Yes of course!” Luffy claps him on the back, “Of course I have to get a boat first and I made a pact with my brothers that we can’t go out to sea until we’re sixteen. But you can join right now!”

Usopp lets out a phew, before taking a deep breath, “I suppose I can join you. I am the world’s best sniper after all.” Luffy smiled and threw himself at Usopp this time he managed to catch him in a tight hug. “Just know on this island you have to call me the Great Pirate Captain Usopp though. I wouldn’t want anyone to get confused since I have a reputation around here.” 

Luffy bobbed his head and gave Usopp one last squeeze before releasing him. 

“I have an idea now, Luffy. If you’re made of rubber and my slingshot is made of rubber.” Usopp scratches his chin thoughtfully, then snaps his fingers, “Come with me!” 

Usopp drags him down to the beach and over to a little cave, “I found these on the shore after a storm a couple of months ago. I’ve been saving them.” He lifts the lid off a wooden crate and reveals a dozen black cannonballs. Luffy’s never seen real cannonballs before. He reaches down. They feel smooth. His ship is going to have tons of cannonballs! These seem awesome!   
  


“Okay now, I want you to take this cannonball and hold it under your chin like so,” Usopp used both arms to hoist a cannonball up to chest level and then place it under his chin leaning his back out to hold it there, “Now you try,” Usopp handed the piece of iron over and Luffy complied he had to stick his chin way out to get it to stay. It was kind of heavy and harder than Usopp made it look. 

“Okay now grab the walls of the cave real hard and don’t let go.” Luffy stretched out grabbing to big rocks and lacing his fingers around them, “Now I’m gonna pull you back, and when I let go you lift your chin.” 

Usopp began tugging and Luffy tried his best to keep the cannonball where it was under his chin. Just when Luffy thought his arms would stretch any more, Usopp yelled, “Fire in the hole!” and let go. 

Luffy tilted his chin back but he was already flying forward and so was the cannonball They shot out of the cave and where Luffy felt his grip snap him back in the cannonball kept flying. It slammed into a distant rock out at sea and shattered it. 

“WHOA! That was so cool Usopp! I’m just like a slingshot. I can’t believe we hit that rock. I can’t wait to tell my brother.” Luffy yelled. 

Usopp was staring between the rock, the crate, and Luffy then he broke out into a grin, “Wanna try that again?” 

Luffy laughed. He couldn’t wait to meet the rest of his Nakama. 


	6. The Cook and the Swordsman Part 2

Zoro had gotten lost again. At least that’s what he called it. It’d been happening more often recently, he’d get this bad headache and then he’d be somewhere unfamiliar. He’d gone out to the forest to train more but somehow he’d winded up here. Wherever here was. 

He squints at the surrounding room. It’s dark, nearly pitch black with just a blanket and small bedroll made of straw in the corner. Even for Zoro it’s very sparse and looks downright dreary. As his eyes adjust he sees a lump in the corner. He instantly has his hand on one of his bamboo practice blades. 

Then the lump moves slightly and groans out, “Go away you’re not real!”

Oh, it was Sanji. Zoro frowns at the comment, “Well I think I’m pretty real. Are you real curly brows? Where are we anyway? This doesn’ t look like your room.” He peers closer, more interested in his surroundings since it wasn’t like this last time he’d found his way to Sanji’s place. Really, he had been meaning to come back, but instead, he kept getting lost in other places. 

Then as his eyes adjust and the blond moves his head up to glare at him Zoro freezes. What’s on his face? It looks like a heavy iron mask. Zoro can just barely make out a set of locks on the right side. What was going on? 

“Why do you have that thing on your face? Did someone decide you’re too ugly?” 

“I’m not ugly! You’re ugly! Stupid seaweed head! Now go away!” Sanji hissed out before putting his head back in his hands and hiding behind his shaggy hair.

Zoro huffs. Sometimes he just isn’t sure what to do with this guy. He walks closer to the blond’s corner and slides down the wall next to him, close enough that Zoro can feel the warmth radiating up from the dartbrow’s skin. 

“Leave.” The lump of Sanji growls from behind his tucked up knees. 

“I don’t want to. I’m tired.” Zoro props his bamboo sword between his legs and leans his head back, staring at the ceiling. 

“Leave.” This time Sanji sounds angry. Good, he should be angry, it looks to Zoro like somebody has him imprisoned. He’d have to fix that somehow. 

“Make me.” That gets Sanji to finally look up again. He looks kind of miserable and too thin. Then dartbrows is springing up and lunging into him. 

Zoro lands back up on the floor with an oof. Sanji is sitting on top of him, his fists raised, in what Zoro can only assume he’s meant to find threatening,“I said leave.” 

Zoro snorts and cocks an eyebrow, “Like I said make me!” 

Zoro throws his weight up and rolls. It doesn’t take much to fling Sanji off of him and stand back up. He juts his chin out in a challenge but Sanji is still lying on the floor. He has his hands splayed over his eyes again and is murmuring to himself. 

“Now I’m fighting with myself. Why is my brain so broken?” Then he breaks back into a steady chant of, “He’s not real. He’s not real.” His breaths are shallow and short. Closer to the pant of an injured animal than a human. It’s pathetic and Zoro doesn’t know what to do. 

He crouches down beside him and nudges him with the palm of his hand. There’s no response. 

“Hey-” he tries, but it’s barely audible over Sanji’s repetitive chanting. Finally, he crosses his arms, he’s had enough. He reaches over and tugs Sanji up. The other boy is light compared to Zoro’s regular training boulders and that seems to break him out of his trance. The other boy yelps and jumps back like a frightened stray dog. 

“Look, I guess I can try to go. If you really want me to. I didn’t know it was going to bother you so much.”

Sanji nods his head once in affirmation. and his shoulders lowered minutely, not quite relaxing but he also doesn't look like he thinks Zoro is about to kick him. 

“It might take a while,” Zoro admits plopping back down on the floor and gathering himself back into a meditation pose, “I can’t really control it when I get lost, it just happens.”

Sanji’s barely visible eyebrows scrunch down in confusion behind the metal mask but he doesn’t say anything he just watches. 

And watches. 

And watches. 

Zoro’s nose crinkles in irritation, he can feel the other’s eyes on him even when he closes his eyes. His mind can’t seem to focus and he can’t picture wherever he was before he found himself there. He sighs. 

“Look-” He starts and then there’s a tug and Zoro finds himself sitting in his sunny training clearing. His boulders are over by the stream and everything. He’s happy to be back especially since Sanji wanted him gone. Sanji-

Sanji. There’s Sanji, still in his metal mask but blinking in wonder as he stares up towards the sun. 

Huh, that was weird. 

“You can get lost too.” Zoro has never met anyone that can get lost quite like him, sometimes it feels like he’s in two places at once and his head is threatening to split open and sometimes he just seems to appear in random places. The only common thing Zoro can find between his visits is that he seems to show up near to the same people. Sometimes it’s a weird guy with blue hair, sometimes he doesn’t recognize anyone because there’s too many people in the crowd, sometimes there’s a girl with blue eyes. Sanji is the only one that’s noticed him and tried talking though. 

“I’m not lost!” The blond spits, “I’m just hallucinating, I’m still back in my cell.” Even though the other boy is hissing at him like a cat Zoro can tell he’s better off than when he was in the cell. 

Zoro shrugs, he doesn’t remember the blond being this crazy when he visited him a couple of months ago, but then again he remembers the callous glee his brothers had when they beat him bloody. Who knows what else had happened since the last time he’d managed to make his way back to Sanji. If Zoro was there things would have gone differently, but Zoro frowned, it seemed like he couldn’t always be there. 

“Whatever you say curlybrows, at least you’re ‘hallucinating’ something nicer than the same four walls. How long were you in there anyway?” 

Sanji hesitantly crouches down and smells a flower, his lips tilt up and he looks more like Zoro remembers him from training, “I guess it is nicer.” 

He notices Sanji doesn’t answer his question, but the blond looks so happy as he peels his shoes off and dips them in the creek that Zoro doesn’t bother to ask it again. 


	7. Two Prisoners in Spirit

At first, Robin thinks she’s been captured. She blinks awake with a terrible headache in a dark stone room with bars blocking her freedom. All she knows is that this is not the swaying hammock on the ship she was traveling on. 

Then she sees that she’s not alone in the room. There is a boy with a monstrous metal mask across his face. He looks younger than her. She stands up and walks closer. He’s wrapped up in a threadbare blanket on a straw mat. Despite his surroundings, the boy is snoring lightly. 

She thinks about waking him up and asking where they are but decides against it. It would be better if he doesn’t see her. The fewer people that see her the better. 

Still, there is only one blanket in the cell, one-bed mat too. Robin shivers and draws her arms around her. It was chilly in here and there wasn’t a window in sight. Who knew how long it would be until morning?

She creeps closer to the sleeping boy and sits by the bottom of his bedroll gently tugging up the blanket enough for her to slip her bare legs under its cover. She’s careful not to touch the stranger. It’s already warm from the boy’s heat. 

It’s been a long time since she was this close to another person willingly. Still, something told her the boy wasn’t a threat. How could he be when he was so small and not even aware enough to notice someone new in his cell? 

No, Robin would wait until the boy woke up in the morning then she would get answers from him. She could have one night surely, after all, there was nothing she could do from inside a cell. 

She leans her head against the stone walls and finds herself slipping to sleep. 

When she wakes up again she is alone, back in the merchant ship where she had fallen asleep. She lets out a breath and then a curse as she stands. She immediately begins to gather her things. She has to get out of here. 

The boy was real, he was one of  _ them _ ! 

A monster. 

She wasn’t safe here. What if he did see her? What if the boy knew about them? What if he reported her. She needed to find more blockers before they found her again. 

For once in her life, she wished she only had dreams like normal humans did. But that wasn’t a dream. It was the curse and just like her, the boy was cursed. If only it was a dream. Surely it was possible even for people like them to have dreams. 

For the first time in a long time, Robin wishes she could go back to Ohara. 


	8. The Doctor and the Liar

Usopp wakes up, the first thing he notices is that his head hurts like one of the villagers has finally managed to get him with a frying pan. He reaches up and squeezes his temples waiting for the little black dots in his vision to clear. The second thing he notices as he takes stock of his situation is that he's not in his own bed. Instead, he’s lying rather uncomfortably on a drafty floor. 

He sits up and winces. 

“AHHH!” He yells, “A monster!” His finger comes up to point while the furry little brown creature raises its- hoof? And shrieks, “GHOST!”

“GHOST? Where?” Usopp immediately scrambles back until his back hits something solid. He looks around the little shack but sees nothing except the strange raccoon. He gulps. Where was he? Had the monster kidnapped him from his bed. It seemed a little small for that. 

The furry thing with a blue nose was hiding behind a table in the wrong way it’s horns hidden while its butt and face remained completely visible. Usopp’s heart pounded. 

“What have you done to me, the Great Pirate Captain Usopp!?” He clutched his head. His voice came out quivering a bit, but it sounded louder than usual. 

“You have a headache?” The little reindeer said, “Here Dr. Hiluluk always says you should put something cold on that to ease the brain’s swelling.” The little creature opened the door and reached outside coming back with something- white? And stuffing it in a rubber bottle. 

“H-here,” The reindeer holds out the bottle keeping himself as far as physically possible from Usopp. 

“Uh, thanks.” Usopp takes it and is surprised to feel the bottle is cold as he presses it to his head, “What was that white stuff?”

“White stuff?” The creature’s nose twitches, “You mean snow?”

“Whoa, so this is snow?” Usopp instantly has the bottle open and is dumping it out into his hand. He’d heard stories of snow from some of the old-timers in the village but it hadn’t snowed in Syrup village for over eighty years. It feels cold and wet against his fingers the white fading into water droplets and rolling onto his pants, “Is there more of it?” 

The little creature nods, “Of course. It’s Drum Island there’s always snow-”

Usopp is off the ground in an instant and heads for the door before the little guy finishes. Snow! Real snow! 

“Are you sure you’re not a ghost?” The creature asks again warily, “You don’t smell like anything.”

“Of course I’m not a ghost! I’m the Great Pirate Captain Usopp!” He strikes a pose dramatically heaving one of his feet up onto the piled snow. When he puts his weight down fully there’s a sinking sensation as it presses through the snow and he falls backward landing on his butt. 

“Oww,” He mutters, rubbing his backside. But then he’s delighted to see that he’s landed in more snow and begins running his hands along it and throwing it. This stuff is great! Way more fun than rain! 

“My name’s Ch-chopper. I’m a reindeer.” The furry animal’s voice quivers, “Did you mean what you said about being a pirate?” 

“Yes! Captain Usopp never tells a lie! I have a hundred men under my command and we sail the seas going on adventures!” 

“Really?” The reindeer squeaks excitedly. He has sparkles in his eyes. 

“Yes!” Usopp figured out the best thing about this snow stuff it packs and unlike mud, it seems to hold its shape. He rolls a ball and then throws it up in the air, gravity pulls it down again and he catches it. He smirks mischievously as he looks at the little reindeer. Yes, snow really was the best. 

“Sneak attack!” He yells as he launches the ball of snow. It hits Chopper square in the face and then breaks apart. Usopp howls on the ground in laughter. The little guy has snow stuck all over his fur. 

“Oh yeah!” and suddenly the little reindeer isn’t so little anymore. Where before Chopper looked about three feet high now he stood at about eight and had massive arm muscles. Usopp blinked. No that was definitely Chopper’s distinct blue nose there. 

He doesn’t have time to process though because Chopper is throwing snow at him like there's no tomorrow. Usopp yelps as the first ball hits him. It's cold! He quickly dives further into the snow rushing to get away as the balls fly down on him. 

“Ah, mercy mercy!” He yells holding his arms around his head as he ducks and weaves. The wave of snowballs stop coming and he stops to pant for a second. He looks back and sees a giant Chopper looking down at him one snowball still raised. 

Usopp leans forward and pretends to bow, “I see oh great giant Chopper that you must be some spirit of the snow that I have angered greatly. Please forgive the Great Pirate Captain Usopp.” He does his best not to snicker as he carefully tucks one arm under his hidden torso and begins to make snowballs, “I can just not keep up with your greatness! Not!” And then Usopp is on his feet again running as he looks back to throw a snowball at the unsuspecting reindeer. 

Soon they’re both laughing as they scamper around chasing each other in the snowy forest. They play on until Usopp notices the sky is starting to turn to dusk. He sneezes, rubbing his chilled arms, “Brr it’s cold. Hey Chopper, where are we?” 

Chopper pops his head out from around a tree and sniffs the air before he freezes, “Oh no. We’re near one of the villages! The Doctor told me not to come here. We need to go!” 

Usopp frowns that sounds dangerous. Sure the people in his village yell and sometimes throw things at him but no one would ever tell him not to go. This must be one scary village. 

He looks over at Chopper to lead the way, only Chopper isn’t big anymore, he’s not small either, instead, he looks like what a reindeer is actually supposed to look like at least from Usopp’s picture books. 

“Get on!” Usopp doesn’t need to be told twice as he climbs onto Chopper’s back and hangs onto his antlers. It only takes a second and then they’re off running, Chopper springing gracefully over piles of snow. 

“Say how do you make yourself so big and little? You sure you’re not a were-reindeer?”

“No,” Usopp hears over the howling of the wind, “I ate the human human fruit and now I can transform.” 

“A devil fruit?” Chopper flinches hard under him and Usopp backtracks without a second thought, “I mean of course it's a devil fruit. The Great Captain Usopp knows all about devil fruits! I have another friend Luffy, well I haven’t seen him in a while, but he has a devil fruit too. He’s a rubber man!” Chopper’s muscles relax somewhat as Usopp sees the cottage from earlier in the snow. 

Chopper slows down as they get closer and Usopp hopes off his back and into the snow. He’s starting to shiver as he tromps close to the cottage. He can see the warm rings of smoke puffing out from the chimney. He can’t wait to be back somewhere warm no matter how fun the snow is to play in. 

Chopper shifts back to his small form and tugs the door open. 

“Usopp,” the reindeer starts his voice small and quivering slightly, “Do you want to be my friend?”

Usopp beats his fist over his chest, “Of course! The Great Captain Usopp makes friends wherever he goes!” 

“Really?!” Chopper turns around excitedly, “I’ve never had a friend before!”

“A warrior of the sea never goes back on his word!” Usopp smiles down at the little reindeer. Then he frowns as he notices something shifting and Chopper begins to fade to white. 

“Choppe-?” The white grows brighter until he can’t see anything else. He blinks several times trying to clear the color. When color begins to fade back in Usopp is standing in his bedroom by himself. 


	9. The Cook and the Swordsman Part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sanji gets out of his cell only to attend a funeral.

It’s rare that Sanji hallucinates surroundings for Zoro. One moment Sanji is getting ready for bed on the Baratie and the next Usually he just sees the man wherever he is. At least that’s how it worked when he was younger and his brain cooked up Zoro in his hellish childhood in North Blue. There’d been once or twice when he was locked away that he had ended up in a forest somewhere with Zoro lifting boulders -training the green-haired idiot called it. 

Still, it was rare and that’s why he’s a little surprised to see Zoro dressed in black traditional clothes and not in his usual dojo uniform. His three wooden training swords are nowhere in sight and he was standing in procession with more people than Sanji could count. He wasn’t sure how to react when he sees the crowd. Just as other people can’t see Zoro when Sanji can, the people here can’t see him. It’s some unspoken rule his brain made up for these specters. 

“Oi Mosshead, what’s going on?” He calls as he steps closer. Sanji expects Zoro to make some snappy comment about the nickname. Instead, the other boy tilts his head towards Sanji but doesn’t give any other notion that he sees him. He’s staring blankly into nothing as the adults move around chatting quietly with one another as if they’re waiting for something. 

Soon a man with glasses and a long black hair pulled back into a ponytail steps out from the large wooden house. The man’s eyes were rimmed with red and his voice is a bit raspy as he speaks, “Thank you all for coming. We will now begin the procession.”

With that, the man steps forward and four men follow after him carrying with them a wooden casket. There is a bouquet of white lilies resting across the front. The crowd parts, allowing the grim party to carry the casket out the front gate. The crowd soon fell in line, trailing behind the body as they headed down the muddy road. It was raining and some in the crowd carried umbrellas. 

Zoro stepped into the crowd following the long train of grievers. He was so small compared to the adults Sanji almost lost sight of him as he darted after the boy. Thankfully, every so often Zoro’s unforgettable hair would flash out from behind one of the mourners, and Sanji would dart in that direction. 

“Hey, Zoro! Wait up!” He was panting when he caught up to the other boy. Zoro was stiff and his usual serious expression looked flat and pinched. It was like he was in shock. 

“What’s going on? Who died?” Sanji had never been to a funeral properly. Not when his mother died. Judge simply wouldn’t allow it. He’d barely allowed Sanji to see her grave. After that, well he’d seen lots of burials at Sea but nothing as formal as this. 

Zoro looked at him. He opened his mouth like he was going to say something and then closed it again. His jaw clenched as he stared forward again. 

Normally this would piss Sanji off. He  _ hated _ being ignored. But, now he couldn’t find it in himself to be angry. If nothing else he felt worried for his hallucination he’d never seen him act this way, even when the other boy was on the brink of exhaustion and looked like a leaf could blow him over. 

The procession slowed down as they entered a small cemetery and finally stopped as they stood in front of an open grave. The casket was lowered down and the man in glasses said a small prayer that was echoed by the crowd. There was a sob from somewhere in the crowd, followed by a woman’s moans as the first shovel full of dirt was thrown into the grave. 

There was a steady thunk of a shovel biting into dirt, followed by a slow patter as the soil rained down to cover the hole. Sanji darted around the other spectators to look at the name on the grave. The thin memorial stone already had incense burning at the foot of it. His eyes traced down the engraving on the stone. 

_ Kuina _

_ 1186-1197 _

_ Beloved Daughter, you will be missed _

She was only eleven? Sanji glanced at Zoro again. No wonder he was so freaked out. She was practically their age. He probably knew her. 

Soon the hole was filled and with one last prayer, the crowd began to dissipate. 

The man with glasses touched Zoro gently on the shoulder as he passed and the rest of the mourners made their way out of the graveyard. The footsteps faded away and then it was just Zoro and him standing alone in the rain. 

Sanji waited. What else could he do? 

He inched closer to Zoro, standing just close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating off the other boy, but that they weren’t quite touching. They stood like that for a while. Sanji saw Zoro get thoroughly soaked by the rain while he stayed as dry as always. 

Finally, Zoro broke the silence. 

“She was going to be the best,” It’s barely a murmur. But it’s more words than Sanji has heard Zoro say since he got here, “We promised.” 

Sanji nodded not quite sure what to say. It’s strange because his head is telling him that none of this is real, but his heart is telling him he needs to keep the other boy talking, “She must have been strong then.” 

“She was. I never beat her, no matter how hard I tried. Not even once.” Sanji raised his eyebrows. That was impressive, Zoro had even managed to beat his monstrous brothers when it came to sword fighting. The girl must have really been something with a record like that. 

“I’m sorry,” Sanji murmurs and he means it too. Zoro doesn’t deserve this but no one ever does, real or not. 

“She  _ promised _ ! She wasn’t supposed to leave me like  _ this! _ ” Zoro chokes out his voice cracking as he ends his sentence. Then it’s like a dam broke and Zoro is sobbing. 

Sanji looks on in shock. He’s never seen Zoro like this. And he’s reaching forward tentatively and wrapping the other boy into a hug, just like his mother used to do for him. He expects Zoro to push him off, but instead, the other boy curled further into his shoulder. 

“I’m sorry,” Sanji says again and again like a broken record. What else can he say? And Zoro doesn’t really seem to be listening to him anyways as he tries to bury himself in Sanji’s shirt. Over time the sniffling dies down. 


	10. The Navigator and the Lost Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robin is alone at sea, but that doesn't mean she's actually 'alone.'

Robin was alone in a lifeboat. All she had in the world was a thin purple dress and a small pack of essentials she’d managed to set aside before the merchants had found out about her bounty again. 

It was practically a cycle now. She ran until she found a new town with someone willing to give her odd jobs. She’d settle down just long enough to fall into some kind of routine only for her past to find her. Some rumor about her being a demon, her bounty poster or marines appearing. It never failed. By now she always had an emergency pack weaseled away. 

This time was only different because now she was adrift in the middle of a storm with no idea where she was. If she fell into the water she was a goner. Nico Robin the demon of Ohara gone forever with no one any wiser. 

She clutched the edgy of the lifeboat, her knuckles white as the tiny boat was tossed to and fro in the waves. The wind flung her hair in every direction and the rain pelted her from all sides. 

She shivered. It was cold. She had no idea where she was. She crouched low under one of the bench seats wrapping her arms around herself and clutching her backpack. 

What was she going to do? She had no idea how to sail, let alone where she was. She closed her eyes. Was this really how it all ended?

“Helllooooo? Is anyone here?” A female voice calls. Robin crawls out from under the bench seat. On the previous empty dingy sits an orange-haired girl in shorts and a flowery top. 

“Who- who are you?” Robin asks fumbling for a knife she keeps on her person, “How did you get here?”

The girl blinks, warily eyeing the knife, as she waves her hands in front of her, “Hey there’s no need for that. I’ve never seen you before.” The girl's eyes narrow thoughtfully. 

Robin pushes herself to the back of the twelve-foot boat trying to put as much space as possible between her and the suddenly appearing girl. Was it a devil fruit? 

“Answer my questions!” Robin cries, thrusting the knife forward threateningly. 

“Wow jeez, fine. My name’s Nami. This must be your first time, I guess you haven’t met the others then. No other people showing out of thin air?” The girl says, her mouth moving quickly as she eyes the knife. 

“Oh.” Robin says flatly lowering the knife, “You’re just another hallucination then. Part of the curse.” 

“The curse?” The other girl asks curiously. A wave tumbles over the lifeboat and Robin rocks back the black water rushing up to meet her as she tumbles towards the edge of the craft. A firm warm hand grabs Robin’s wrist pulling her away from the depthless ocean and back onto the wet wooden floor of the boat. 

Robin coughs feeling her strength return from the seawater. She stared at her hands panting and carefully looked up at Nami. Huh, that was new. She’d never had one of the cursed hallucinations touch her before. She wasn’t aware they could. But then again when she was still in Ohara library helping the other scholars the books had been very vague about what exactly the limits to the curse were. If the girl could touch her did that mean that Robin could the girl? 

“Wow you really need to be more careful,” Nami said her eyebrows creased with worry, but she was as dry as ever. The cursed people always were it was as if her weather didn’t affect them wherever they came from. “For being out in a storm you really didn’t take any precautions. Here,” The girl lifts the coil of rope from the bow of the boat and begins knotting it. 

Robin takes it more confused than anything. Nami looks up at her and then ties the other end of the rope to a metal ring in the front of the boat. She then stands a loops the other side of the rope around Robin’s waist. Robin allows her to do it. Nami pulls the know tighter, but not uncomfortably so, giving it a tentative tug before releasing it, apparently satisfied. 

“What is this for?” Robin asks, her fingers running along the length of rope. 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Nami says grabbing the two oars and carefully jamming them under the seats in the boat. “It’s so you can pull yourself back on the boat if the storm pulls you over. It’s kind of crazy you’re out here all by yourself anyway, but this will at least help you out. We can’t really do much else other than bail the water out and wait.” The girl shrugs like this is usual instead of terrifying. 

Robin swallows and then huddles back her knees pressed against her chest. Not looking at the strange girl. What did it say that the cursed people were the kindest she’d ever met? 

Nami settles beside her, close but not quite touching. The wind howls around them. 

“So, uh I didn’t get your name?” Nami says. 

“Robin. Nico Robin.” She glances up expecting to see rejection or at least comprehension on the other’s face. Instead, the girl smiles and sticks her hand out. 

“Nice to meet you! You know I think you don’t seem so bad when you’re not threatening me with a knife. So how many of the others have you met?”

“You mean the other curse figments?” Nami’s brow furrows again at the word curse. 

“No, I mean the..” Nami waved her hand flippantly, “I don’t really know what to call them, the others. They’re certainly not cursed! They’re always there when I need them. Even if some of them are idiots. I mean I’ve only met some of them a couple of times but when I tell Nojiko about them she always smiles.” The girl’s face softens at the memory. It was fascinating, this perspective, she must be from a very far away place to not know. The World Government eradicated anyone like them, abominations. They were so cursed that even their history in the Void Century was completely wiped out. 

This Nojiko though, Robin paused, replaying her words, the way Nami spoke she couldn’t be one of them. Ice plunged down the back of her throat. 

“You shouldn’t mention this to others,” Robin whispers clutching the other girl by the shoulder suddenly. Fear crawls in the pit of her belly, “You can’t they’ll come for you, just like they are for me!” 

Nami startles back, but Robin doesn’t let go of her. This is important. She knows from her very limited knowledge that they share pain, and whatever happens to one of the curse figments may as well happen to the rest. She shivers thinking of any of the cold marine officers getting their hands on this poor girl like they had tried her. Or she shivers remembering the last pained whimpers of her mother or the booming laughter of Saul as he tried to convince her everything would be okay. Nothing was okay. She never wanted that to happen to her again. 

“Promise me.” Robin says, her eyes trying to read the other girl's thoughts, “You can’t tell anyone that isn’t like us.” 

“Al-alright,” Nami lisps, “I mean I don’t really understand everything you said. But if you're so worried about it. Everyone important already knows.” She pressed her hand against a tattoo on her arm. “Bellamere always said that the others they’re parts of my soul.” 

Robin laughs at that, something dark and horrible she’s sure as she watches Nami’s eyes widen, “That’s a nice sentiment but far from true. You and me Nami, and any of the others you’ve met we’re cursed abominations that weren’t meant to exist. Like I said keep this information quiet. It will be better for all of us if you do.” 

Nami’s fingers curl into fists, “I don’t know what happened to make you believe all that about curses. But you won’t think that once you meet Luffy.” Nami declares, her voice steady like her statement is the only truth in the world. 

“You’re naive.” Robin shakes her head. 

Nami snorts before lifting her nose up and scenting the air, “The storms going to clear up soon.” 

Robin raises an eyebrow curiously. How could she possibly tell? She glanced up at the sky. It seemed just as dark and foreboding as it had before. 

“So,” Nami starts again, “You never answered my question, who have you met?” 

Robin sighs this girl talks too much. “I’ve only seen three others besides you. I’ve only talked to one of them.” Nami raises her eyebrows, waiting for her to continue, “There was a reindeer in a castle. He saw me and ran away before I could even make out what was going on. There was a blond boy on a barren island. He was starving. He was so far gone if he made it out I doubt he remembers.” Robin licks her lips, trying to moisten them, “There was a teenager with blue hair-”

“Blue hair?” Nami prompts looking more interested than before.

“Yes, he was alone tinkering in a workshop. I spoke to him.” She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t want to. 

“Huh, well the only one that sounds familiar to me is the blond. I think that was Sanji. He’s really nice, he's a cook.” Nami smiles, “I’ve never seen the other two. But,” Nami raises her hand putting one finger up, “There’s Luffy, you would know if you met him,” She ticks another finger up, “There’s Usopp, he has a long nose and is really terrible at lying.” She adds another finger. “And now there’s you! How many of us are there?”

Robin frowned, filing away the information for analysis later. The others could be dangerous, they might come after her or who knows what. She had let her guard down with Nami because of the storm, and, well, the closest thing to human affection she’d felt in more than six months. Still, she couldn’t trust any of the cursed figments. She had to remember her mother and the hateful look of that damned marine. 

She clenched her fist, “There’s eight. There’s always eight.” 

“Huh, so there’s more to look forward to then. Do you think any of them are any good at stealing? Are you?” Nami grinned and Robin blinked, confused, “I’m looking for a partner, fifty-fifty on the cut, I’ve got something important I have to buy and a partner would really speed things up.”

What an odd girl. 

“I’m afraid I don’t enjoy stealing.”

“Shame, you seem way smarter than the other guys I’ve met.” With that Nami stood up. Robin looked up to see that the rain had stopped and the clouds were beginning to clear, stars glistened from above. 

“Do you have a sail?” Nami asked. Robin shook her head. Nami frowned, “Any idea which way the nearest island is?” 

Robin shook her head again, “You can go if you want. I assume you were only pulled to me because of my fear of the storm.” 

Nami shook her head, a stubborn tilt to her head, “No way. No one gets lost on my watch. Here just wait-” Nami rustled in her pocket before pulling out a sextant and holding it up to the horizon. 

“Do you even know what sea we’re in?” Robin asked curiously, clearly, the girl knew something about navigating. Navigating wasn’t a topic she had read much on, but after this, well, that would need to be fixed. 

“Nope,” The girl popped her p, before looking up to the stars, “It doesn’t matter. I have a feeling based on this that if we head south we’ll hit land.”

“A feeling?” Robin said in disbelief. 

“Yup, you got any better ideas?” Nami crossed her arms over her chest, “You don’t even have a sail or the sense to tie down in a storm.” 

Robin felt her anger stirring and she grits her teeth, “Whatever you say Navigator-san.” She hissed sarcastically. The other girl’s eyes narrowed but she didn’t take the bait. 

They sat in silence for a long time after that, long enough that the sun began to rise over the horizon. She heard a caw and looked up in wonder to see a seagull. At dawn's first light she saw the long shadow of something stretching over the horizon. 

She turned to her companion, “Nami look its an isla-”

She cut herself off. Nami wasn’t there. She was alone on the small lifeboat floating towards land by herself. Alone again. 

She couldn’t stop the tears as they began to flow, hot and sticky down her cheeks. Had any of that been real at all? 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahaha you thought things wouldn't end in tragedy didn't you? Reviews, comments, and kudos are all very much appreciated!


	11. The Captain and the Crew Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Luffy finally finds one of his crewmembers.

Sanji blinks, stopping mid stir on his hollandaise sauce. There’s an empty tinge in his stomach. Then a painful cramp, that feels like he got sucker-punched in the stomach a couple dozen times, or he grimaces like his stomach was so barren it was trying to devour itself. He sets down his wooden spoon and the room spins around him. 

That was an unmistakable feeling of hunger, but he’d eaten breakfast just under an hour ago with the rest of the kitchen crew before opening the restaurant for the morning rush. This was crazy. Why was his body feeling like he was back on that rock in the middle of the  _ goddamn ocean _ ? 

He reaches down to pick up his wooden spoon again, he’ll be damned before he lets his sauce burn in Zeff’s kitchen, but the saucepan and the Baratie Kitchen are inexplicably gone. Instead, he’s standing on hard bleak dirt in an empty courtyard.

He groans. He thought for some stupid reason that maybe he’d grow out of his hallucinations. That just like the family that won’t be named he’d be free of this weird problem of his once he left the North Blue. Instead, here he was his mind showing him god knows what. One more legacy of him being broken that he can’t shake. 

Sanji is already reaching for his cigarette pack before he can even determine which character is going to be the focus of his delusions today. God, he hopes it's Nami. He deftly tugs one of his cancer sticks out and lights it before looking around. 

His eyes land on an unmistakable dark green cloth in the center of the field and he grimaces. Not Nami then. Why was his luck always so shit? 

He saunters forward still wearing his apron as his long strides carry him towards his very familiar pain in the ass hallucination, “Oh, marimo let’s get this over with. I’ve got a kitchen and lovely ladies to serve. What did you do this time?” He takes one last drag of the cigarette, savoring the acidic smoke as it fills his lungs, as his brain pieces together what he’s seeing. 

He frowns. 

The familiar mosshead is tied to a stake in the center of --he catches sight of the white and blue marine flag flickering in the wind- a marine base. Jeez, what had the idiot figment of his imagination done this time? 

His eyebrows drop in concern. He notices Zoro’s green haramaki is missing his ever-present swords. Zoro is littered with scrapes, blood, and bruises. He looks unusually emaciated, less muscular than Sanji can remember ever seeing him before. 

Sanji’s adam apple bob's down as he gulps, suddenly feeling a little too cold and like the air is a little too hard to breathe. The cigarette falls from his mouth. Zoro looked like he was starving. How long had he been like this? 

No wonder Sanji felt like he was starving. Zoro was. 

He always seemed to have the habit of picking up his hallucination’s feelings or pain, especially when they were weak. Overempathizing might be the word. He wasn’t really sure. 

The only time he’d ever felt anything from Zoro other than smugness was when he’d followed him in that funeral procession the green-haired man had never fully explained. Sanji put it in his mental box of ‘things never to be mentioned again’ along with the Vinsmokes. In the same way, Sanji was sure Zoro had -well if he was a real person- put all the times he’d stumbled into Sanji in the cells. If his  _ imaginary  _ friend had any sense of recollection of those times he certainly never mentioned it again. 

All he knew was that what he’d felt earlier in the kitchen of the Baratie was starvation and here was a starving man he couldn’t feed right in front of him. 

“Oi, moron!” Sanji says stepping closer to the post, “Are you dead?”

One of Zoro’s eyelids slowly rolls open, his grey eyes roaming a bit before they seemed to focus on Sanji, “Oh it’s you cook, I was expecting one of the other ones haven’t seen you in a while.”

Sanji snorts. That’s certainly a mild way of putting it. He hadn’t seen Zoro since shortly after the cruise ship sank. Sanji had other hallucinations far and in between but never Zoro again.

Zoro’s eyes roll closed again like a predator that has assessed the situation and found it to be non-threatening, “Go away swirly brows. I’m trying to meditate here.” Zoro doesn’t even bother to open his eyes or look up from his hunched position as he dismisses Sanji. 

It takes an ever streaming chant of he’s starving and this isn’t real for Sanji to not kick the other man’s teeth in. If he didn’t look so thin Sanji wouldn’t have thought twice tied up or not. The grown-up Zoro is a pompous asshole. 

Sanji grabs another cigarette and flicks his lighter. It’s going to be one of those days. He really hopes his sauce isn’t burning. 

He can’t really control his hallucinations. They always come and stop when they will. They seem to run on a time all their own. So he’s stuck here with shitty company until the universe decides otherwise. 

Sanji fiddles with his lighter and then moves to straighten his suit. When the awkward silence is too much for him, he can’t help but saying, “You look like you could use a meal.” 

He means it honestly, really he does, even if it probably comes out a little more snide than he intends. He expects some anger from Zoro, maybe a grown-up version of glares he remembers the kid Zoro giving him, instead Zoro opens his eyes and says, “I’ll eat after all this is over. I only have ten more days left.”

“Days left? You’re doing this on purpose!” Sanji hisses, his eyebrow twitching in anger. He can’t help it. What kind of idiot starves themself on purpose?!

“I’m tied up. Do you really think this is my favorite thing in the world!” Zoro yells back. Sanji would have burst out in a smile at the more familiar trajectory their conversation was headed for. Then Zoro bursts out coughing. 

He probably needs water, Sanji’s mind supplies. Dehydration goes right along with starvation, only it gets you first. 

Zoro hacks a couple more times before continuing in a raspy voice, “I have a deal with this marine. I just have to last for one month and I’ll be free to go. I’m strong, I'll make it.”

Sanji couldn’t help a little bitter feeling from bubbling up inside him. Even starving to death the man had hope. He had so much confidence he’d make it. He couldn’t help but be a little envious of that. 

He remembers endless days sitting on that rock waiting, hoping, praying, that a ship would come. And here was this man shrugging it off like starvation was nothing. He shoved the thought away, what was the point of feeling jealous for something that wasn’t even real?

“Whatever,” Sanji says, stepping to the side of the post and settling down on the ground. His back leaning against the post, his legs spread casually in front of him. “What’d you even do to end up here? Kill some marines that pissed you off?”

Zoro doesn’t grace that with a response and instead just gives Sanji a suspicious glance like he can’t quite figure out why he’s so close. Unbidden the thought of Zoro as a confused cat that can’t figure out why a dog is sniffing it comes to mind. Sanji doesn’t bother to reign his laughter, especially when his mental image of the cat comes in the color green. 

The swordsman gives Sanji his patented glare, before turning his head down again and pointedly ignoring his existence. 

Sanji lets the silence sit between them for a while his stomach clenching faintly in hunger. From what Sanji can remember from his childhood Zoro was never much of a talker, still, it was obvious the guy needed something, anger or otherwise, to take his mind off of his predicament, “I guess you won’t mind me telling you about my day.”

“If you’re not gonna stop jabbering you might as well. It’s not like I have anything else to do.” Zoro lifts his shoulders as much as the tightened ropes allow in a mock shrug. Sanji hides a faint smile behind his hand. That was certainly the bravado workaround he remembered from the other man. 

Sanji starts rambling on about Patty and his latest antics and all the beautiful women he’d seen coming and going onto the Baratie. He carefully doesn’t talk about food. There was no need to be cruel. 

He doesn’t know how much time has passed. Zoro seems to be focusing or maybe he fell asleep, either way, Sanji’s stomach pains have lessened so that probably means he’s helping in some way. He hears a muffled thump, and glances up, pausing in his storytelling. A little girl clutching a bundle to her chest had climbed over the fence into the yard and was now running towards them across the empty courtyard. Behind her, he heard concerned shouts from the other side of the fence. A kid with pink hair was making panicked motions to a young guy in a straw hat. The girl ignored them and ran right up to Zoro. 

“Hi Mister Roronoa, I thought you might be hungry so I made you rice balls!” The little girl flipped the cloth off the package showing three white rice balls. Sanji sniffed the air and came away with something sweet. Something was a little off about the food. 

“Not hungry,” Zoro grumbled, cracking one of his eyes open to glare at the kid.

“But you’ve been here so long,” The girl said shuffling her feet against the ground, “You must be hungry.”

“I said I’m not.” Zoro says shortly and Sanji feels his stomach clench the liar, “Now leave!”

“But-” The girl starts.

“Don’t make me kick your ass!” Zoro yelled, startling the child as she clutched the rice balls closer to her chest. 

“You kick her ass I kick yours mosshead!” Sanji growled. He’d long ago learned that the threat of violence or sometimes an actual fight was the only way to get an idea through the green shit swordsman’s head. It’s not like Sanji didn’t know this wasn’t real. It’s just it went against his basic morals to allow women and children to be hurt anywhere, even in his own mind, especially in his own mind. 

“What do we have here?” A blond man with a stupid bowl cut and an even stupider purple suit, asks sauntering into the courtyard followed by two marines, “Someone assisting the prisoner? Oh, rice balls!”

The man reaches into the packages and pulls out the snack, taking a big bite while he smirks in Zoro’s direction. The man instantly stops chewing a look of disgust crosses his face and then he spits the food back out onto the ground. 

“Ew disgusting!” The man wipes his mouth with his sleeve, “You used sugar! You’re supposed to use salt.” 

Ah, Sanji thought that might be the problem. 

“This isn’t fit for the pigs,” The blond says, dropping the rice ball onto the dirt and then shaking the rest of the rice balls onto the ground. 

Sanji growls standing up, “Hey meathead, cut it out!” As always the man makes no motion that he heard him. Stupid hallucinations. 

“But..”The little girl’s lip quivers, “I tried so hard making that.”

“Well next time you shouldn’t be so shit at it! You,” The blond points at one of the soldiers, “throw her over the fence.” 

Zoro’s eyes widen and he growls. 

“Sir, she’s just a little girl.” The marine tries to protest.

“She was in the yard helping a prisoner. That sounds like a crime to me. You either do it or I’ll tell my father about it.” The blond says with a smug look. 

“Bastard!” Sanji hisses, trying to kick the idiot only to have his foot faze through as it always did in his hallucinations. He glances back at Zoro only to see the alarm plain on his face too. He was radiating with just as much anger as Sanji was but he couldn’t do anything about it. 

The marine shivers his attempt at bravery quickly fading away as he salutes and picks the little girl up pitching her over the fence. The girl’s shrieks as she flies with the full force of the throw. Sanji is already darting after her, more on instinct than on sense. He jumps over the fence, only to see the girl in the arms of a teenager with a red vest and a black hair. A straw hat flutters to the ground beside him as he lands. 

Sanji lets out a sigh of relief as the teenager and a pink-haired kid check the little girl over. She’s crying but doesn’t have so much as a scratch on her. He watches silently as the dark-haired teen stands up, dusts himself off, and carefully plucks his hat from the ground and sets it on his head. Then, the teen is climbing over the fence. Sanji follows, his curiosity getting the better of him. 

When they get back over to Zoro the bowl cut idiot and his posse are nowhere to be seen and the Straw Hat is talking to Zoro with a blank look on his face. 

“Are you really that strong? I would have escaped in less than three days.” The teen asks, and Zoro shoots him a venomous glare that has Sanji smirking. Zoro is many things but weak would never be a word used to describe him. 

“Shut up!” Zoro growls, a self-assured grin coming to his face, “I’ve got more willpower than you. I’m going to survive this and don’t you forget it!” 

“Well suit yourself.” The teen says with a wave as he takes a step to turn around. 

“Wait,” Zoro says, “Could you get that for me?” His eyes trail downward to the muddy mess of rice that’s all that remains of the girl’s effort. 

“You’re gonna eat this?” The kid asks, scooping the dirty mess into his hands. 

“Shut up and give it to me now!” The kid tosses it into Zoro’s open mouth, and Sanji winces as he hears the crunch of what can only be gravel mixed in with the rice. 

“At least you’re not stupid enough to waste food,” Sanji mutters and Zoro rolls his eyes at him. Sanji meets the eyes of the Straw Hatted kid. Who seems to be looking curiously at him?

That couldn’t be right. In his hallucinations, it was only ever one person that could see him. And the mosshead was his most frequent vision, on lucky days he got the gorgeous Nami. He liked to think that was the universe rewarding him for having to imagine a guy like Zoro on the regular. 

“Should have listened to me.” The kid says as Zoro chokes down the food that really at this point is more mud than rice. Sanji wished he could have beat the blonde who ruined that perfectly good meal a little girl tried her hardest to make. He’d kick some sense into bowl cut, 

“It was delicious.” Zoro mutters, “Tell the kid I said so.” 

Sanji smiles at that. A true smile, the kind only Zeff and a few others get to see, “Of course it was delicious. The kid put her whole heart into it.” 

Zoro doesn’t reply to him. But the Straw Hat smiles, “You’re both pretty funny. I’ve decided you’re gonna join my pirate crew!”

“Both?” Sanji hears himself and Zoro say in unison. 

“Yeah.” The Straw Hat kid says, chuckling, but not giving anything else away with his reaction. 

“Uh, Luffy,” The pink-haired boy tries, confused, “You know I’m gonna be a marine right?”

“Not you Coby. These two!” The Straw Hat says, pointing to Zoro and him. Huh, this was new. 

“Oookay,” The pink-haired kid says apparently more than a little used to the crazy that radiated from this kid. 

“Name’s Luffy, I’m gonna be King of the Pirates!” The kid declares a huge smile stretching across his face after his ridiculous statement. Sanji looks at Zoro and sees a similar shocked look on his face, “And you’re gonna be my Nakama.” 

“Wha-?” Sanji starts only to feel a sharp pain radiate from his back. Suddenly, the scene in front of him is morphing to white and then he’s back in the familiar kitchen on the Baratie. 

“Stop talking to yourself and staring into space, beansprout! You’re gonna let the soup burn!” Zeff’s peg leg lowers from what could have only been a fierce kick to the back. 

“Shut up you old geezer!” Sanji yells back on reflex, as the old man huffs and stalks off to hassle the rest of the chefs. When Zeff and his stupid mustache are finally out of sight, Sanji lets out a sigh, glad no one else noticed his episode. He gets enough shit from the other cooks he doesn’t need them knowing about this too. Sanji carefully mixes the hollandaise with his ladle brushing off all the emotions that came from the latest hallucination. The steady mixing centered him and he carefully dipped down a spoon to taste the sauce. Thankfully it wasn’t burned. It just needed a little something else. He turned to the spices, his hand running down the ingredients until it landed on the white crystals. He smiled, just what it needed a pinch of salt and a hint of sugar. 


	12. The Captain and the Crew Part 2

“Pirates are coming! Pirates are coming!” Usopp yells as he sprints towards his house. He waves his hands in the air trying to get anyone and everyone’s attention. 

He’s met with hostile looks from the people of Syrup Village. Why wasn’t this working anymore? 

He’d been doing this every couple of days for the last year and at first, the villagers would gather their pitchforks and rush down to the harbor. But, now he was lucky to get so much as a passing glare. 

He needed them to make noise though. His mother always brightened from her fever dreams when she heard people head towards the harbor and he needed the other villagers to make it believable. 

It just wasn’t fair! Why wouldn’t his dad come home? Everything would be okay if he did.

He felt his eyes sting and rubbed them furiously with the back of his hand. He was the great Pirate Captain Usopp and he wasn’t crying, it was just dust from all of his crew members running after him. Yeah! That was it. 

“Hahahah!” He laughed, turning to look at the glaring villagers behind him, “The Great Captain Usopp has fooled you again there are no pirates!” 

“You’re an idiot,” He saw a little girl with bright orange hair and a floral sundress standing by the road with her arms crossed. 

He jumped back from her. He could swear she wasn’t there a minute ago. 

“Wh-who are you?” He gulped. He hoped she wasn’t a ghost. 

She shook her head and sighed, “You’re doing it wrong!”

She didn’t seem like a ghost. He picked up a stick that was nearby and threw it at her. It bounced off. The girl gave him an annoyed look and raised her fist threatening. 

“Ha! The Great Captain Usopp knew you were no spirit. Nothing could ever fool-”

Something hard came down on his head. 

“Owwie!” He fell to the ground at the sudden blow, clutching his skull in his hands and rolling on the soft grass as he waited for the pain to stop. 

He looked up to see the girl glaring at him. She’d hit him! He backed away from her slowly. What a scary girl. 

“Would you shut up and listen for one second?” She hissed at him, before flipping her hair over her shoulder and lowering her fist. Good, she had a crazy strong punch. 

“What do you want?” He asked, trying and failing to keep her voice from shaking. 

“Look I normally wouldn’t say anything. But, this friend of mine, well he says that sometimes it’s okay to help people. I mean he says a lot of other dumb stuff too. But, I see you do this like every other day and you’re just so bad at it!” The girl stomped her foot and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Bad at what?” He asked, trying to not provoke the crazy girl anymore. Honestly, he can’t remember ever seeing this girl before in his life. But, if she saw him do this a lot she must be from the village. Was she new here?

“At lying!” 

“What!? I am not!” How outrageous. He was great at lying! 

“Yes, you are. Seriously no one even believes you anymore.” The girl huffs out the last part of her answer like it was obvious. 

His voice wavers, “Is that why no one goes down to check the harbor anymore?”

“Of course it is! You’re like that story about the boy who cried wolf.” Usopp chews on his lower lip. Could the girl be right? “You can’t just go around saying crazy ridiculous things or no one will ever believe you. You have to ground it in reality!” She’s emphasizing each word with a wag of her finger. 

“What do you mean?” 

The girl sighs, before grabbing his arm and helping him off the ground. “Come on, I'll show you, follow me.” 

“But, I have to go check my Mom.” He tries to protest and drags his feet. She raises her fist again and he yelps his feet trailing after her as he comes down with a sudden case of  _ pleasedonhimmeitis. _

He trails after her a couple of steps as she leads him back into town. 

“But the villagers are gonna hurt me!” He whispers loudly at the girl. She rolls her eyes and keeps walking until they come to a small grocery store. They walk in and 

“Take it.” The girl says pointing to a bag of rice on the floor. 

“That’s stealing!” He whisper-hisses at the girl, “The villagers will beat me up for real for stealing. They might even turn me into the marines.”

“Well, you know what stealing is?” The girl says crossing her arms over her chest, “Really good lying practice. Now just do it!” 

He can’t believe that him and the crazy girl are having this conversation about theft here in broad daylight, in front of the person they’re trying to shoplift from. Usopp shivers and feels a wave of  _ pleasantonttalkanylouderImightdieitis  _ overtake him. He gulps and the girl is still staring at him expectantly. The old lady who runs the shop is nose deep in a newspaper from a news coo and doesn’t even seem to notice him. 

Usopp gulps. This doesn’t seem right to him, stealing wasn’t the same as lying, stealing hurt people, and lies made people laugh mostly. 

The girl rolls her eyes as if she can sense his inner turmoil and then he feels something warm overtake his body and his eyes widen as his arm reaches out and tucks the bag of rice under his arm. 

The next thing Usopp knows he’s sauntering towards the door and suddenly the old shop woman is standing in the doorway with a very mean looking broom. 

“And where do you think you’re going, young man?” She says. Usopp’s eyes dart around, not sure what’s happening or how his body could betray him like this. 

“Uh-” He starts trying to formulate an excuse that isn’t I think my body has been possessed by a little witch girl. 

“Cry!” The girl demands. 

His eyes flip over to her not sure what to do, “But I-”

The girl stomps down on his foot hard and Usopp doesn’t have to fake the tears that gather in his eyes. 

“Tell her that you’re mother is sick and she needs to eat but you can’t afford to pay for it.” 

“It’s hardly a lie when it's true! My mom is sick!” Usopp bursts out and he can feel a slap on the back of his head. It hurts but not as much as the punch earlier. He reaches up to try and soothe it down before his eyes dart off to look at the girl again. 

“Well duh,” The girl says, her eyes soften, “Those are the best kinds of lies. The kinds that are mostly true. Now quit making up all those dumb stories and you might actually get people to believe you! Even a liar has to be honest sometimes!” 

Usopp blinks. What she said did make sense in a really strange way.

“Oh sweetie,” The old woman says, lowering the broom as Usopp stands there confused and sniffling, “Do you not have any money?”

The girl smiles in triumph as Usopp bobs his head. How the lady manning the till could be buying this whole thing with the little orange-haired girl right here giving him instructions is beyond Usopp but she seems to be eating it up. 

“Well I can’t afford to give you the whole bag of rice but here, come with me.” The woman puts down the broom and leads him back over to the shop counter where she fishes out two loaves of bread and four apples, “Here take these.” The woman is already shoving them in his arms, before she gently takes his shoulder and escorts him to the door, “Next time you should go to the mayor's house, he’s a nice man and the village always sets aside something for children.” 

Usopp tries his best to hide his confusion as the shopkeeper removes him from her store, except his arms feel heavy with all the food she’s given him. Food his Mom could really use. Food that for once wasn’t the thin porridge the doctor brought over. Usopp blinks as he heads back towards the woods. It takes him a few minutes to catch onto the crunching of gravel behind him. When he looks back there’s the orange-haired girl trailing after him. 

“I told you it would work,” The witch girl says grinning at him, “And you didn’t even have to steal it. They just give you what you want. That’s the power of a good lie!”

“How’d you do that? How’d you know that my Mom and I needed food? Are you some kind of witch!?” Usopp asks, narrowing his eyes to glare at her. 

“No- look sometimes I travel to see you. I mean I’ve been visiting you for weeks and watching you tell all these awful lies. It looked like you needed a teacher.”

A cold shiver ran down his spine. The girl had been watching him for weeks and he hadn’t even noticed. He took a few more steps away from her. 

“That’s just us, we're connected!” The girl cocks her head to the side in confusion, “I thought Luffy said he already met you. He hasn’t stopped talking about how you already agreed to be in his crew for weeks. It’s been super annoying.” 

“Luffy? How do you know Luffy, he doesn’t even live in this village?”

The witch girl facepalms, “That moron. He didn’t explain anything did he?”

“Explain?” Usopp asks trailing off to find a bench to sit down on. This girl was confusing, but Luffy was alright. A little weird but a lot of fun. Maybe the girl had a devil fruit power too. One that made her invisible or let her control people’s bodies. 

The girl flashed him a toothy smile, “You and me and Luffy, we’ll we’re special. We’re connected see up here,” The girl tapped her head, “And here.” She tapped her heart, “I think it’s pretty rare Bellamere used to tell me stories, and other than my sister I haven’t met anyone that’s like us.”

“How are we special?” Usopp asks, racking his brain to try and figure out what that could even mean. 

“Well have you ever had weird dreams, or woken up in places that weren’t your home and only one person could see you. Well, that person is one of our special people.”

Yeah, that had happened. Usopp distinctly remembered a snow-filled day and a laughing Chopper. He thought that was just a weird dream, or series of dreams because sometimes he still dreamed about Chopper. But maybe it wasn’t a dream. 

“It’s like we share a soul, you just know that everything will be okay when you’re with them. We can also do other things too, like share skills, but it only happens sometimes and I’m way better at it than Luffy.” The girl frowns and looks down, “I’m still trying to figure out if we can use Luffy’s devil fruit or not. It’s not like anyone knows the rules.” 

Now that would be cool. If he could find a way to use Luffy’s power Usopp could always have his rubber band fingers ready to flick someone. He could be his own slingshot! 

“Anyways seeya I have my own business that needs to be taken care of and suckers to con!” With that, the girl waves and starts walking away. 

“Hey! Will I see you again soon?” He asks. He hadn’t even gotten a name and sure she could be scary but she had tried to help him. Plus none of the other kids on the island would even talk to him anymore and hey she was the one that said they shared a soul. 

“I mean you will. I can’t say when though.” The girl’s eyes drifted quickly away from his intense stare, “But, I have lots of stuff to do on my own you know.” 

“Can I at least have your name?” 

“Nami. My name’s Nami.”

“And I’m the Great Captain Usopp!” He says sticking out his hand for her to shake. She snorts and doesn’t take it. 

“Yeah, well Usopp I sure hope the next time I see you you’ll be better at lying!” Then she sticks out her tongue at him and runs off disappearing with an echo of footsteps. 

He can’t say he didn’t try to take Nami’s advice to heart. But Kaya always laughed the hardest at his most ridiculous stories and he really liked to make people laugh. Even if his lies made the other villagers give him dirty looks or mumble about his father was a good for nothing. Still, his ‘lies’ as other people called him were sources of happiness and he wouldn’t take that away from them. After a while, Nami and her tinkling laugh and lesson fades from his memory. 

* * *

“The killers are on the shore. Their bloodlust is unquenchable!” Usopp yells at the top of his lungs as he runs down the main dirt path of the village. Various villagers duck their heads out of their doorways to look at him with interest. When he has a large enough audience he turns to face them, “The pirates are a lie!” He bursts out laughing loudly at the annoyed faces of the villagers. 

“You little liar you’re not gonna get away this time.” A man says a pot in one hand and a ladle in the other. 

“Wait, wait wait, “Usopp recites to himself, laughing as he allows the angry villagers to get closer with their pots and pans, “Now run!” 

With no time left to waste, Usopp darts into the forest snickering to himself as he climbs a tree and rests peacefully on one of the branches. He watches as the villagers snake out below looking for him, before declaring that he got away again and shuffling off to get back to their day. 

He hums to himself, enjoying the sun that filters in between the leaves. That was a job well done in bringing excitement to people's days. He hears a hubbub and the voices of three boys down in the forest. 

“PIRATES!” Onion shrieks digging his heels in to stop in front of Usopp’s tree. 

Usopp laugh. “You really need to work on your stories.”

“No,” Onion huffs out, trying to catch his breath, “They’re real pirates they’re flying the buggy pirate flags and everything!” 

Real pirates? Here on his island. He feels his legs start to wobble in fear. Oh, no, this wasn’t a game anymore. They needed to hide! 

“Yeah, but there were only two ships and three people.” Onion adds as Usopp starts his tirade on scardicat sickness and how he suddenly feels sick. 

_ Three people?  _

Even the secretly cowardly Captain Usopp could handle three pirates! 

“Man the traps, men! The Great Captain Usopp will take care of it!” He laughs loudly as he scrambles down the tree and they head for the shore. 

Once they get there he saw Onion was telling the truth. There are two small sailing dinghies sitting on the sand. There’s three people hunched together arguing on board. He motions for the boys to get into position. 

“I am the Great Captain Usopp leader of the invincible pirates that rule over this island.” He shouts in his strongest manly-man voice as he pops out of the woods and onto the cliff with a dramatic wave of his homemade flag, “I have over eighty million pirates under my command. You best leave now unless you want to face our wrath!” 

“You expect us to believe that!” A woman’s voice asks. Usopp finally pays attention and gets a good look at the people in the dingy. It can’t be-

No with that orange hair it definitely was! It was Nami! 

“Eighty million may have been an exaggeration but I still have a great many men under my control.” Usopp snarks back. 

“Whatever you say oh Great Captain Usopp.” When she rolls her eyes when he announces that he’s the Great Captain Usopp, he can’t help but feel an odd rush of glee. It was definitely her. “Also, “Nami smirks, “My guess is three.” 

“You know?” He panics slightly and how quickly he was found out. How could she be so accurate? 

“Well, now I do.” She says grinning as she folds a loose strand of orange hair behind her ear. 

“You tricked me!” Usopp tries to sound scandalized but can’t keep the excitement out of his voice. 

“Ahh, how did she know!” Pepper bursts out of his hiding spot in shock. 

“She’s a witch!” choruses up from Onion and Carrot as they drop the fake pirate flags and run away. 

“You guys are pretty funny!” Laughs the man with his face shadowed by a straw hat. A straw hat that feels rather familiar. Then the boy is tilting his head up into the light and there’s an unmistakable scar under his eye-

“LUFFY!” Usopp shrieks in excitement and the rubber boy has already launched himself into the air. Luffy knocks into him throwing them both to the ground but Usopp is laughing so hard he can’t bring himself to care. “You’re really here! And you’re with Nami too and- Whose he?” Usopp jabs his thumb at the green-haired stranger who he’s never met before, but something about the man feels like he belongs there. 

“Oh, that’s Zoro. He’s a swordsman and he’s really cool. He’s nakama.” Luffy says nodding as Usopp peers at Zoro whose staring just as hard back. The man must be like them then, a ghost traveler going out into the seas to visit people far and wide. 

“Is that your ship then? I didn’t think you’d want to be under the Buggy Pirates, Luffy?” Luffy slings one of his rubber arms around Usopp’s shoulders. 

“Nah, I stole this from him and kicked his ass. Shishi.” Luffy laughs with a wide grin on his face, as Usopp’s eyes widen in surprise.“We actually were going to try and get a better ship on this island and get our crew’s snipper!” 

“Aye-aye Captain!” Usopp says with a mock salute and a grin. He’ll have to say goodbye to Kaya -and Onion, Pepper, and Carrot of course- but he can’t stop the thrum of excitement that’s suddenly pounding through him. He’s going to be a pirate -a real one- and a brave warrior of the sea. Just wait Dad I’ll find you someday and I’ll make you proud. 


End file.
